Afriqiyah Airways Plane Crashes at Tripoli Airport, 105 Killed
All 105 persons on board of a Libyan plane coming from South Africa were killed as it crashed at Tripoli airport, said media reports quoting a security official.
On condition of anonymity, the official said that dead persons included 94 passengers and 11 crew members, reports said.
The crash occurred as the Afriqiyah Airways plane was landing after a flight from Johannesburg at around 6:00 am (04H00 GMT) but the cause of the crash is not immediately known, said reports.
“All 94 passengers and 11 crew members who were on board were killed,” the official was quoted as saying.
On its website, Afriqiyah Airways said that it operates an Airbus fleet.
The website said that it began operations with five leased planes and inked a contract with Airbus at an exhibition in Paris in 2007 for the purchase of 11 new planes, reports said.
Founded in April 2001 and fully owned by the Libyan state at first, the company’s capital was later divided into shares to be managed by the Libya-Africa Investment Portfolio.
On April 21, the airline announced that flights were back to normal after disruptions due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that grounded flights in Europe last month.
(Based on internet reports)
