Overload causes Benin plane crash: Lebanon

More than 100 of the 161 passengers and crew were killed in the crash. Several more were missing. The number of survivors was in the low 20s and included the pilot.

The cause of the crash of the privately owned Boeing 727 was not known, but Lebanese Foreign Minister Jean Obeid said that overloading of people and baggage may have contributed to the crash.

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"It appears that the number of passengers exceeds the normal number, in addition to the load, which it appears was very much in excess," he told reporters at Beirut airport upon returning from Benin with the survivors.

One of the survivors, identified as 14-year-old Abdelrahman, said he was sitting on the plane's floor near the emergency exit because the plane was full, adding that the jet had trouble taking off.

"The pilot tried but was unable to take off the first time. He turned the plane back and tried to take off another time ... slamming into a tower. I tumbled into the water," he said in an interview with a local television station.

Ali al-Durr, head of the Lebanese community in Benin, told LBC television that he had tried to contact owners of the jetliner in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Benin in order to obtain a manifest of the passengers names, claiming the lists had disappeared.

Reuters adds: Divers recovered the black boxes from the wreckage of an airliner in Benin Saturday as investigators puzzled over why the Beirut-bound Boeing smashed into the sea moments after take-off.

Nine more bodies were pulled from the surf Saturday, taking the death toll from Thursday's disaster to near 140, while 15 survivors were met after touching down in Lebanon.

The Boeing 727 was carrying 151 passengers plus crew, including over a hundred Lebanese nationals, 15 Bangladeshi army officers returning from UN peacekeeping duty in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and people from many African nations.

A team of divers found the black boxes underwater in the plane's tail section. The two orange-colored devices should have recorded cockpit conversations prior to the crash and any anomalies in the functioning of the aircraft.