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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- A plane crash that killed nearly 100 people in Nigeria might have been averted if the pilot had heeded advice from air traffic controllers to wait for a lightning storm to clear before take off, the aviation minister said Monday.
Citing the fatal decision as a possible cause of the third fatal passenger jet crash in this West African nation in a year, Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade said the government was preparing new guidelines to prevent pilots from ignoring control tower advice and make the country's skies safer.
Borishade did not say pilot error caused Sunday's crash, however, and authorities are still investigating what brought down the Boeing 737 owned by the Aviation Development Co. at the edge of Abuja airport.
Meantime, the government ordered all of ADC's planes grounded indefinitely and suspended its flying license, Borishade said.
The privately-owned Nigerian airline last suffered a crash in November 1996, when one of its jets plunged into a lagoon outside Nigeria's main city, Lagos, killing all 143 aboard.
The latest crash killed 96 of the 105 people aboard, including the pilot and Nigeria's top Muslim leader, Muhammadu Maccido. The plane smashed into savannah near the airport runway and broke apart, leaving torn luggage and body parts scattered across a wide area.
Both the aircraft's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were recovered by Monday and handed to investigators, said Asgus Ozoka, who heads Nigeria's Accident Investigation and Prevention Bureau.
Representatives of aircraft manufacturer Boeing and engine maker Pratt and Whitney are expected to arrive in Nigeria Tuesday to help with the investigation, Ozoka said.
ADC released the flight manifest Monday, confirming 96 dead and nine survivors, among them: three daughters of the governor of Kogi state in central Nigeria who were returning to university in the northern town of Sokoto, where the flight was bound. "Two are in stable condition and one is still in intensive unit but has improved," said the governor's spokesman, Farouk Adejo. "They were all sitting separately."
The ADC plane crashed about one minute after takeoff in bad weather that Borishade said included rain, gusty winds, thunder and lightning.
Air traffic controllers warned the pilot of the doomed ADC flight that the weather would worsen, he said.
"The air traffic controller re-emphasized the deteriorating weather condition and gave wind checks, which they (crew) acknowledged," Borishade said.
But the pilot "refused to take advantage of the weather advice and the opinion of the (control) tower to exercise patience and allow the weather to clear for a safe take off."
A Virgin Airlines flight that had been on the runway about the same time apparently heeded the information, and did not take off because of strong winds, said Rowland Iyayi, head of the National Air Space Management Agency.
"The discretionary power of the air crew to override advice from the tower has been largely responsible for unfortunate consequences in the history of air mishaps in this country," Borishade said. "The federal government has directed the National Civil Aviation Authority to look into this and prepare appropriate guidelines to stop this reckless abuse of crew discretionary power ... to ensure safety."
Nigeria suffered two fatal crashes last year, and the latest crash brings the death toll from the three air disasters to 320.
On October 22, 2005, a Boeing 737-200 plane belonging to Bellview airlines crashed soon after takeoff from the country's main city of Lagos, killing all 117 people aboard. On December 10, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 plane operated by Sosoliso Airlines crashed while approaching the oil city of Port Harcourt, killing 107 people, most of them school children going home for Christmas.
After those disasters, President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered an overhaul of the aviation sector, but it's unclear how much has been done. Airlines have been subjected to checks for air-worthiness and some planes considered unworthy were grounded.
Nigeria's government is under increasing pressure to fix an air industry widely regarded as notoriously unsafe.
The Bellview investigation is still continuing, but authorities have released a report blaming the Sosoliso crash on bad weather and pilot error.
The report also blamed other officials for the Sosoliso crash, saying the plane's pilot had received no weather briefing before he descended into a rainstorm and tried to land despite poor visibility. The aircraft fell short of the runway, skidded and hit an open concrete drainage before bursting into flames.
The report highlighted other serious shortcomings of the Sosoliso crash: runway lights had been switched off because staff of the Federal Airports Authority which controls them were not working that day.
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