Survivor blasts rescue efforts in Kenya Airways crash

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Survivor blasts rescue efforts in Kenya Airways crash

Source: AP | Published: Monday January 31, 5:04 PM

Abidjan: A survivor of a Kenya Airways jet which crashed into the sea just after takeoff from Abidjan, today said the rescue effort had been a disaster.

The Airbus 310 was carrying 169 passengers and 10 crew members when it plunged into the sea about five kilometres offshore after reportedly just clearing the runway wall at Abidjan's Felix Houphouet-Boigny Airport.

The Transport Minister said 10 had been saved.

But Samuel Ogbada Adje, a Nigerian who survived the crash after swimming out of the wreckage, said angrily: 'If they had come sooner, a lot of us would have been saved. We waited two hours for people to rescue us.'

He said plane had not seemed 'balanced' on take-off.

Witnesses said the plane never appeared to get sufficient altitude as it crossed over the airport's wall and headed out over the ocean, just a few hundred metres away, after taking off at 9:08 pm last night.

'I saw it take off,' said an itinerant trader who identified himself as Alogouleta. 'After it went over the wall, it was still very low. Then it hit the water. I heard the sound two times,' as the plane slammed into the ocean.

Dozens of people, who live nearby or were praying in churches along the beach road, heard the plane slam into the water.

A few immediately jumped into the water, hoping to get to survivors, but were quickly driven back by the harsh surf that slams noisily into the white sand beach.

Six or seven survivors were found floating in the wreckage, said Raymond Kesse, an official with the Ivorian Red Cross. He said they were being picked up by boats and taken to an area hospital.

Earlier, another survivor, a Frenchman, was brought to the same hospital with cuts and bruises.

'He was a good swimmer. That's how he managed to survive,' said Dr Tanoh Koutoua, who treated the man, said to be Jean-Marc Denez, a 34-year-old veterinarian living in Abidjan.

At least two more survivors were seen being brought ashore at a port a few kilometres from the crash scene. One woman, blood pouring out of a head wound, was brought in by the owner of a fishing boat.

'We were really lucky to find her,' said Gerard Frere. 'She was clutching onto debris.'

He said the crash site was a chaotic scene.

'We went out here and there, we had no light. We had to improvise,' he said. 'There are bodies floating everywhere, ripped off arms and lots of debris.'

The plane took off at 9:08 pm last night and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean just one minute later, according to George Dapre Yao, the head of air traffic at Abidjan's Felix Houphouet-Boigny Airport.

Kenya Airways Flight 431 carried 167 adults passengers and two children, Yao said. Officials said the cause of the crash was under investigation, and declined to speculate on why the plane went down.

In Nairobi, Steve Clarke, the technical director of Kenya Airways, said the plane took off in Nairobi but had to land in Abidjan because it could not make a scheduled stop in Lagos because of bad weather caused by the harmattan - sand blown south from the Sahara Desert and the Sahel.

He said most of the passengers were believed to be Nigerians. The route is popular among Nigerians heading to Dubai for duty-free shopping.

'The aircraft started its initial climb with no problem and then suddenly descended,' Clarke said.

Emergency officials - firefighters, police officers, soldiers and divers - were combing the beach near the crash scene, about 2km east of the airport, looking for survivors and corpses.

An official at the airport's control tower said French military firefighters, who are stationed at a French military base next to the airport, had also been dispatched to the scene. The French Foreign Ministry in Paris confirmed that a Marine infantry battalion was taking part in the rescue operation.

The weather was clear in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast's commercial city, at the time of the crash.

The control tower official said that wreckage of the plane could not be seen, but the area where the plane had crashed was visible from the tower.

Kenya Airways has a partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. Together, the two airlines operate four flights a week from London to Nairobi, via Amsterdam. Last night's crash was the first such disaster for Kenya Airlines, which has been operating since 1977, Clarke said.

The airlines has three other Airbus 310 aircraft in service and no plans to recall them, Clarke said. The plane that crashed was manufactured in 1986 and was due to be replaced in two years.

The Kenyan government retains a significant interest in its national carrier while KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the largest individual shareholder with a 26 percent stake in the company.

According to the Airbus Industrie Web site, the A310 is

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 31, 2000

Answers

Lunchtime for the sharks.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 31, 2000.

HAWK!!!! Behave yourself! You surely don't want THAT kharma coming around to SMACK you!

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), January 31, 2000.

Sorry kritter, Hawk is right we can make light of this accident, here's how.

1995 Almanac, Nigeria's population = 98,091,000 Natural increase in population = 3.1% annually = 3,040,821 annually divided by 365 days = 8331 per day! SO if they lost lets say 160 people in the crash for each person that died 52 sprung up to replace that single person that particular day.

So in other words, Nigerian women spend most of there time at the hospitals sh*tting babies that's what a 3.1% natural increase means. Natural increase is derived by subtracting deaths from births.

That's more education for the demographically illiterate. Later on when we have 10 billion instead of 6 billion the shortsighted people will say, "Why didn't we do something earlier." Why? Because reproductive rights are just as important as breathing rights for the liberals. Right Hokie?

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 31, 2000.


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