A Dutch child was the sole survivor of a plane crash at Tripoli airport today that killed 103 passengers and crew, Libyan officials said.
The Afriqiyah airline Aiebus A330-200 planewas flying from Johannesburg in South Africa to Tripoli when it crashed. It was possible that some of the passengers had been bound for Britain because the flight from Johannesburg connects in Tripoli with an Afriqiyah Airways service to London.
"All of the passengers and crew died except for one child," a Libyan security source said at Tripoli airport. There were 93 passengers and 11 crew on board.
Libyan online newspaper Quryna, which has close ties to the government, reported that shortly before the crash the pilot had contacted the control tower to ask them to alert emergency services because there was a problem with the plane. There was no official confirmation of that report.
The dead included 62 Dutch nationals and 22 Libyans, including passengers and crew. The rest were of various nationalities, a Libyan official at the airport said. Libya's transport minister Mohamed Zidan said a 10-year-old boy, who holds a Dutch passport, was in hospital. The child did not have life-threatening injuries, the minister told a news conference near the crash site.
The Dutch Motorists' Association ANWB, which has an emergency assistance service for Dutch people abroad, said they were travelling on tours organised by travel agencies Stip Reizen and Kras.
Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende said a crisis team had been set up at the foreign affairs ministry.
A spokesman for the Dutch Foreign Ministry said diplomats were planning to visit the injured boy as soon as possible to try to confirm his identity. "One of our colleagues in Tripoli was told by a doctor at the hospital that he has broken bones and was being operated on," the spokesman said.
In a statement posted on its website, Afriqiyah Airways said flight 8U771 crashed during landing at Tripoli International airport.
Saleh Ali Saleh, head of the Afriqiyah Airways legal department, said the plane's black boxes had been recovered from the crash site. "The deaths were probably due to the impact as I did not hear any report of a fire. The plane was travelling fast as it was still short of the runway when it crashed," Mr Saleh said.
Airbus issued a statement confirming it had manufactured the plane involved in the crash. "Airbus will provide full technical assistance to the authorities responsible for the investigation into the accident," it said.