A Nigerian plane crashed during a storm at Port Harcourt airport on Saturday, killing 103 people including dozens of schoolchildren on their way home for the Christmas break, officials said. The plane, a DC9 operated by Nigerian airline Sosoliso on its way from the capital Abuja to the oil city in the southern Niger Delta, crash-landed, broke into pieces and burst into flames, witnesses said. Seven of the 110 people on board survived the crash.Civil aviation officials said the Sosoliso flight missed the airport runway, though two eyewitnesses said they saw it land on the tarmac. It was not clear exactly what had happened and police stopped reporters from getting close to the wreckage.
President Olusegun Obasanjo said just after the Bellview crash in October that Nigeria would "plug loopholes" in its aviation sector and strengthen compliance with maintenance standards. Investigators from the aviation ministry were on their way to the Port Harcourt crash site on Saturday evening, officials said, adding the airport was closed to all flights.
Experts say most of the country's commercial fleet is over 20 years old and second hand, while runways are often closed because of poor maintenance. It is not uncommon for planes to take off and land in torrential rain.