28 December 2003
Lagos — A plane carrying 15 survivors from Thursday's charter jet crash in the West African state of Benin has arrived in Beirut.
Benin Foreign Minister Rogatien Biaou said 113 people were confirmed dead in the crash of a plane operated by the Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains (UTA).
The Boeing 727, carrying mostly Lebanese expatriates heading home for holidays, clipped a building at the end of the runway the airport in Cotonou, Benin's commercial capital, before plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.
Emergency teams are still working to retrieve many of the bodies of the victims and authorities are making arrangements for their return..
Twenty-two people, including the pilot, survived the Christmas Day crash, most of them Lebanese.
There were 151 passengers and 10 crew aboard the man, which leaves more than 20 people still unaccounted for.
Of those that arrived in Beirut on Saturday, many were seriously injured, CNN's Brent Sadler reported.
The injured were rushed to the American University hospital.
"We will bring everybody back to Lebanon. The bodies of the dead will arrive in the coming 48 hours, " said Lebanese Foreign Minister Jean Obeid who accompanied the flight.
Some survivors told amazing tales of how they managed to live through the incident.
One 27-year-old man told Sadler that as part of the plane began to disintegrate after it hit the building, he was flipped in his seat and found himself flung into the air.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2003 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
