Posted on 12/27/2003 10:25:46 AM PST by cgk
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Lebanese passenger Nabil Hashim laughs with his brother Ali, Saturday in a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon. Hashim is one of the more than 20 people who survived Thursday's plane crash into the sea near Benin; 161 people were on board. (AP/Mahmoud Tawil)
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COTONOU, Benin (AP) - Fifteen army officers from Bangladesh returning from UN peacekeeping duty in West Africa were among at least 138 people killed when a jet clipped a building and crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff on Christmas Day, officials said Saturday.
The peacekeepers boarded the Boeing 727 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and were heading home for a break after serving there and in Liberia, Bangladesh's military said.
The announcement came as authorities in Benin recovered more bodies from the plane, which had 161 people on board the flight bound for Beirut. More than 20 people, including a pilot, survived the crash.
There still was no word on what caused Thursday's crash, but Lebanese Foreign Minister Jean Obeid said in Beirut after a short trip to Benin that the aircraft may have been overloaded.
"It appears that the number of passengers exceeds the normal number, in addition to the load, which it appears was very much in excess," Obeid said after returning from Cotonou with 15 survivors - 12 Lebanese, two Palestinians and a Syrian.
Large pieces of the jet, including a wing, two engines and the cockpit, were still on the beach Saturday. People stood around watching as young boys sifted through the debris for valuables or lounged on tattered aircraft seats from the downed plane.
Benin's government ordered the start of three days of national morning, and flags were lowered at government buildings in the impoverished West African country of nine million.
On Saturday, eight more swollen bodies washed ashore. Medical teams loaded them onto ambulances and took them to morgues in Cotonou, the commercial capital.
Two of the corpses were those of Iranian citizens, said Mohammed Reza Samara, an Iranian diplomat based in neighbouring Nigeria who came to retrieve the bodies.
A military cargo plane sent by France arrived in Cotonou late Friday and was waiting to airlift corpses to Beirut on Saturday.
"Right now, we're working to identify the bodies to get them ready for evacuation today, and with new bodies found this morning and the ones found earlier, I think we have a lot of work to do," said Ayoub Ali, a Lebanese official co-ordinating the evacuation.
On Friday, survivors recounted horrifying stories of the crash, while Lebanese families lined beaches to identify family members or friends.
"I can't bear to think what has become of them," said Karim Jumblat, a Lebanese man waiting for news of three brothers who were heading home to spend the holidays with their parents.
"If only they had waited a few days more," Jumblat, who was to follow his brothers a few days later, said before turning to wipe away tears.
Another man fainted as authorities brought his wife's body to shore Friday. A day earlier, they recovered his three-year-old daughter.
One survivor, Hamza Hamoud, said he was travelling home to Lebanon with nine friends.
"During takeoff, we were laughing, playing around," the 28-year-old businessman told The Associated Press, pacing a Cotonou hospital with bandaged arms. "I felt the plane hit something and suddenly we were in the water."
Hamoud swam to safety, then helped fishermen save others.
"All my friends are dead. All nine of them," he said.
Another survivor, Guinean flight attendant Aminata Bangoura, said there was a large explosion two minutes after takeoff, causing the plane to plunge at a high speed.
"People were screaming and shouting, but I didn't even have time to shout as things happened very fast," she said at a Cotonou hospital, where nurses tended to cuts on her face and bruises on her arms and legs.
Bangoura, 28, said she was briefly trapped when the plane struck the water. She struggled and freed herself, swimming until she saw two men in a boat who hauled her aboard.
"I still don't know how I managed to survive. God just willed that I must survive. I thank God," she said.
I heard it ran into a building? Is that what caused the explosion?
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