Eight-year-old boy 'is only survivor' as plane with Britons among 104 on board crashes in Libya



Al Afriqiyah Flight 8U771 from Johannesburg was due to stop in Tripoli



Foreign Office trying to confirm number of Britons on board

Seven passengers had been due to connect to another flight to Gatwick



Flight 'exploded and disintegrated' just one metre from runway

Dutch boy 'miraculously survives after he is flung from wreckage'

96 bodies retrieved from crash site so far

61 of the dead are Dutch; the rest believed to be British, South African and Libyan



An eight-year-boy from Holland was the sole survivor out of 104 passengers and crew on a Libyan Airbus which crashed in landing at Tripoli airport this morning.

The flight from Johannesburg was due to land in Tripoli just after 6am today. Earlier, airline officials had said it was due to continue on to Gatwick after the stop, however officials later clarified that seven passengers had been due to make a connecting flight to Gatwick in Tripoli on another plane.

It is believed that there were Britons on board. The Foreign Office is still trying to confirm how many passengers were British.



'All of the passengers and crew died except one child... There were 93 passengers and 11 crew on board,' the source said.

'It disintegrated': Police and rescue workers stand among the mangled remains of Al Afriqiyah Flight 8U771, which crashed on landing at Tripoli airport this morning



Horror: All of the 104 on board died in the crash, save one - believed to be an eight-year-old Dutch boy who was thrown clear as the plane exploded on impact



Flight 8U771 from Johannesburg crashed just one metre from the runway, exploding on impact and 'completely disintegrating', aviation sources told the MailOnline.

The Dutch boy appears to have been miraculously flung to safety from the wreckage, the source said.

He has been rushed to hospital, where he is being treated for various injuries including broken bones.



‘It’s an absolute miracle that he got out,’ said one. ‘He’s been rushed to hospital in Tripoli, but it’s hard to tell what kind of condition he’s in.

‘The plane crashed next to the runway. It was around a metre away.



'The body of the plane completely disintegrated, meaning most people would have died straight away.’



Of the 96 so far confirmed dead, 61 were Dutch. There were 22 Libyans on board the flight, including all 11 of the crew. The rest of the passengers had several different nationalities, said the official, apparently including Britons and South Africans.



Tragic: Police and rescuers examine the debris, including two empty seats, near the runway in Tripoli this morning. Much of the debris was still smoldering as it was examined by officials



Shattered: The tail section of the plane appears to be the largest piece of debris in the crash



Click to enlarge

Airports Company South Africa spokeswoman Nicky Knapp said it was still too soon to say for sure whether any of the victims were British.

But she confirmed the seven had been due to disembark the doomed aircraft in Tripoli and board another plane for London.

Dozens of others were scheduled to take connecting flights to other European destinations.

Speaking at a press conference at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg, Mrs Knapp said: 'Seven passengers were due to board another plane to Gatwick after landing in Tripoli.

'32 were due to board a plane for Brussels, 42 for Dusseldorf and one for Paris.

'Eleven passengers were due to end their journey in Tripoli.'

An Afriqiyah staff member in Johannesburg said it was 'likely' that British passengers were on board the Airbus 330.



She added: 'We are waiting to get confirmation of the full passenger list at the moment.

'Once we have that we will know for sure the nationalities that were on board.

'At this stage I would say it is likely that there were British nationals on board.

'The airline uses Tripoli as its hub but routes through to London, Paris and other destinations.'

The British Embassy in Libya confirmed a team had been dispatched to the airport in Tripoli to confirm whether British nationals had died.

Deputy Consul Arvinder Vohra and local staff have been in meetings with the airline to determine victims' identities.

Embassy spokesman David Clay said: 'Libyan officials informed us of the crash at 7am local time and sent representatives straight to the airport.

'They are talking to whoever they can to work out what happened and who was on board flight 8U771.

An unidentified man walks among the debris, spread far over the crash area this morning

'Everyone in the office is also working as fast as possible to get a clearer picture of the situation but the investigation is still in its early stages.

'We have reports that British nationals were on board and are trying to verify this.'

A British High Commission spokesman in Pretoria said officials in South Africa were also working on the case.



He said: 'We are in constant contact with our colleagues in Tripoli.'

Libyan state television showed a large field scattered with small and large pieces of plane debris.

Dozens of police and rescue workers with surgical masks and gloves walked among the wreckage, 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 smouldering - including a flight recorder and green seats with television screens on them.



Libyan television showed images of debris on the ground. The plane is said to have been just one metre from the runway when it crashed

A large piece of the plane's tail was visible, bearing Afriqiyah's brightly coloured logo with the numbers '9.9.99,' a reference to the date of the founding of the African Union.

The airport road into Tripoli – which is some 15 miles away – was this morning full of ambulances and other emergency vehicles including numerous fire engines and police cars.

Weather conditions over Tripoli's international airport were good today, with three-mile visibility, scattered clouds at 10,000 feet and winds of only three miles per hour.

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.



The plane's flight recorders have been recovered. Terrorism has already been ruled out as a cause of the crash.



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.

Another large piece of fuselage that survived the impact. Locals said the weather had been clear at the time of the crash today



The main runway at Tripoli Airport is 3,600 yards long.



According to international airport guides, it is not equipped with an Instrument Landing System. This all-weather, precision approach system guides descending planes down to the threshold of the runway.

But it does have two other systems that many other airports use worldwide - a high frequency omnidirectional radio system that pilots use to navigate their aircraft, and a non-directional beacon that also helps guide planes into the airport.



The BBC has reported that the Afriqiyah Airways flight from Johannesburg had been due to land at 0610 local (0410 GMT).

The airline had said earlier today that a search and rescue operation was underway. Later this morning it said that mission was over.



Al Afriqiyah is a Libyan airline that started in 2001.

An aerial view of the Tripoli airport (file photo), where the plane crashed just before landing today

It is a small budget airline which only operates 13 planes. They have an average age of 6.9 years.



All of Afriquiyah’s 300 odd staff are Libyans, including the entire crew of the plane which crashed.

Until today it had an impeccable safety record, with this morning’s disaster being by far the worst accident in its nine-year history.

It mainly operates on African routes, but international destinations include London, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam.



It was at first fully owned by the Libyan state. 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.

Last June, a 14-year-old French girl was the sole survivor of a Yemeni plane crash off the Comoros Islands.

Bahia Bakari attributed her survival to being ‘ejected’ from the Airbus A310 which broke up on a flight from Paris.



She is thought to have escaped through a small gap in the broken fuselage.