Home: Kecelakaan Pesawat di Tripoli Tewaskan 104 Orang

Kecelakaan Pesawat di Tripoli Tewaskan 104 Orang

(12 Mei 2010)

Tripoli, Sebuah pesawat Libia yang tiba dari Afrika Selatan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 mengalami kecelakaan pada Rabu di bandara Tripoli yang menewaskan 104 orang yang berada di pesawat itu, kata seorang pejabat keamanan kepada AFP.

Mereka yang tewas itu adalah 94 penumpang dan 11 awak pesawat, kata pejabat tersebut, yang berbicara tanpa bersedia disebutkan namanya.

Belum ada petunjuk yang diperoleh mengenai penyebab kecelakaan itu, yang terjadi ketika pesawat Afriqiyah Airways sedang mendarat setelah terbang dari Johannesburg pada sekitar pukul 06.00 waktu setempat.
Dilaporkan, dalam kecelakaan ini satu orang anak perempuan berusia delapan tahun berhasil selamat.

Afriqiyah Airways mengatakan dalam laman jejaring atau "website"-nya bahwa pihaknya mengoperasikan armada Airbus. Maskapai itu memulai operasi dengan lima pesawat sewa dan menandatangani kontrak dengan Airbus di sebuah pameran di Paris pada 2007 untuk pembelian 11 pesawat baru, kata laman tersebut.

Maskapai tersebut didirikan pada April 2001 dan pada awalnya dimiliki penuh oleh negara Libia. Modal perusahaan itu kemudian dijadikan dalam bentuk saham untuk dikelola oleh Portofolio Investasi Libia-Afrika.

Sumber: tvOne

Versi www.huffingtonpost.com

TRIPOLI, Libya — A Libyan plane carrying 104 people crashed Wednesday on approach to Tripoli's airport, leaving a field scattered with smoldering debris that included a large chunk of the tail painted with the airline's brightly colored logo. A 10-year-old Dutch child was the only known survivor.

The Dutch prime minister said everyone on the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 arriving from Johannesburg, South Africa was killed except the child, whose survival was hailed as a miracle.

The youth was taken to a hospital in Tripoli and was undergoing surgery for injuries including broken bones. Officials initially said the child was a boy, but the Dutch Foreign Ministry later said there was uncertainty over the survivor's gender.The Royal Dutch Tourism Board said 61 of the dead came from the Netherlands.

"This is a large group of Dutch nationals after all, so it's a deeply sad message we have this day," Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said.Libyan TV showed video of the dark-haired child lying in a hospital bed with a bandaged head and wearing an oxygen mask. The child had intravenous lines in one arm and appeared to be conscious.

An embassy official planned to visit the survivor in the hospital later Wednesday, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ozlem Canel. She said officials were still trying to verify the identity.The Libyans "say and think it is a Dutch child, but that must be determined by our colleague," she said.

The crash left a large field scattered with small and large pieces of plane debris and dozens of police and rescue workers with surgical masks and gloves, some of them carrying at least one body away. They gathered small personal items such as wallets and cell phones from the wreckage.

Others sifted through debris – some of it still smoldering – including a flight recorder and green seats with television screens on them. A large piece of the plane's tail was visible, bearing Afriqiyah's brightly colored logo with the numbers "9.9.99," a reference to the date of the founding of the African Union.

The plane was carrying 93 passengers and 11 crew."Afriqiyah Airways announces that our flight 771 had an accident during landing at Tripoli International airport," a statement said. "At this moment, we have no information concerning possible casualties or survivors. Our information is that there were 93 passenger and 11 crew aboard. Authorities are conducting the search and rescue mission."

Libyan Transport Minister Mohammed Ali Zaidan said 96 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage and rescuers were searching for the rest of the victims.The head of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek said the child's survival was "truly a miracle."

The plane was approaching the airport in the Libyan capital Tripoli when it crashed at around 6 a.m. (0400 GMT, 11 p.m. EDT Tuesday) There was no immediate word on the cause, according to a statement by the airlines posted on its website.

The company that runs the Johannesburg airport said the flight departed at 9:37 p.m. local time (3:37 p.m. EDT) Tuesday.The airline later issued a second statement saying a search-and-rescue operation at the crash site "has now been completed and casualties have been moved to various hospitals."It said Tripoli was the flight's final destination.

The aircraft that crashed was delivered from the production line in September 2009. It had accumulated approximately 1,600 flight hours in some 420 flights, according to Airbus.Weather conditions over Tripoli's international airport were good on Wednesday, with three-mile (4.8-kilometer) visibility, scattered clouds at 10,000 feet and winds of only three miles per hour.

A NASA Web site said an ash cloud from Iceland's volcano had reached North Africa by Monday, but a map from Britain's meteorological office showed it was well west of Tripoli at the time of the crash.

Brussels-based European air traffic management agency said the thinning volcanic ash cloud that disrupted air traffic over parts of Europe and the Atlantic in the past few days had moved into mid-ocean and was unlikely to have affected an airliner in Libya, more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) to the west.

Daniel Hoeltgen, spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency said Afriqiyah has undergone 10 recent safety inspections at European airports, with no significant safety findings. He said a team of French crash investigators was already on its way to Tripoli.

"We are currently talking to Airbus and with the French accident investigator BEA, which will be involved in the investigation," said Hoeltgen. "We will lend our support if this is required by authorities in charge."Afriqiyah Airways is not included on the European Union's list of banned airlines. The list has nearly 300 carriers deemed by the EU not to meet international safety standards.

According to initial reports, the plane crashed as it neared the threshold of Tripoli International's main east-west runway, while preparing to touch down from the east.

Sumber Link : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/libya-plane-crash-afriqiyah_n_572898.html

Posted in Labels: Berita Penting ()