Investigators found one of two black boxes from an airliner that crashed, killing 96 people in the third mass-casualty jet crash to hit Nigeria in less than a year, officials said yesterday.
The Boeing 737 -- owned by the private Nigerian airline, Aviation Development Co (ADC) -- was carrying 100 passengers and five crew when it went down just moments after taking off from Nigeria's capital on Sunday. Releasing the flight manifest, the airline said 96 people died and nine were hospitalized in Abuja.
There was no word on what caused the disaster, but the plane reportedly crashed in stormy weather.
Rowland Iyayi, head of the National Air Space Management Agency, said a Virgin Airlines flight that had been on the runway at about the same time as the ADC flight did not take off because of strong winds. Iyayi did not say, however, that bad weather had caused the crash, and stressed investigations were ongoing.
Asgus Ozoka, who heads Nigeria's Accident Investigation and Prevention Bureau, said one of the plane's so-called black boxes was recovered late on Sunday and handed over to police officials involved in the investigation. It was not immediately known whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
Among those confirmed dead was Nigeria's top Muslim leader, Muhammadu Maccido. Maccido was sultan of the northern state of Sokoto and headed the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Nigeria, which announces when Muslim fasts should begin and end, and decides issues of policy for Nigeria's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims.
Maccido's body was immediately flown to Sokoto, where thousands of people were gathered at the airport. Maccido was buried late on Sunday in accordance with Islamic custom. The Sokoto state government declared six days of mourning.
The plane crashed one minute after taking off from Abuja airport, said Sam Adurogboye, an Aviation Ministry spokesman. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered an immediate investigation, his spokeswoman Remi Oyo said in a statement.
The plane went down in a tree-filled field inside the sprawling airport compound about 3km from the runway. Smoke rose from the aircraft's mangled and smoldering fuselage. Its tail, hanging from a tree, was one of the few recognizable parts.
The plane was bound for the northwest city of Sokoto, about 800km northwest of Abuja, state radio said, adding that it had gone down during a storm. Witnesses said there was a rainstorm around the time the aircraft took off, but rains later subsided.
Mustapha Shehu, spokesman for the Sokoto state government, had said earlier that the sultan's son, Muhammed Maccido, a senator, was also aboard the flight, along with Abdulrahman Shehu Shagari, son of former Nigerian president Shehu Shagari, who was in office between 1979 and 1983. Their fates were not immediately clear.
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