Archbishop offers prayers following Tripoli plane crash: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 7. May 28, 2010
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Archbishop Makgoba
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Cape Town has offered his condolences and has opened its churches to the families of those killed in last week’s crash of a Libyan Afriqiyah Airways plane in Tripoli.
The Airbus A330-200 carrying 93 passengers and 11 crew in transit from Johannesburg to Europe crashed on its approach to Tripoli. An 8-year-old Dutch boy, Ruben van Assouw, was the only survivor.
The dead included 58 Dutch, thirteen South African, two Libyan, two Austrian, one German, one French, one Zimbabwean and two British passengers; the nationalities of the other passengers have not yet been identified. All eleven crew members were Libyan.
The plane was approaching Tripoli after a nine hour flight from Johannesburg, when it crashed at 6:00 a.m. local time. The flight data recorder has been recovered and is being reviewed to determine the cause of the accident.
On May 12, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town stated the church offered its prayers for those “who lost their lives” especially as we “consider the shocking and brutal way in which they died.”
“We do not know the cause of the crash – and even if we did, it would not alter the way that our hearts weep within us. We call for the relevant aviation authorities to determine and declare the cause soon, so that others can learn from this tragedy,” he said.
Yet, “we thank God for the sole survivor. In his survival, we see that even in this dark cloud of death, there is this ray of hope. I pray that God, as we know him in Jesus Christ, will be for all those affected a source of hope, strength, and comfort,” Archbishop Makgoba said.
