Boy survivor says he's 'fine'

The Dutch boy who was the sole survivor of a Libyan plane crash that killed 103 people said he is "fine" in comments yesterday, as it emerged the pilot reported no faults before the jet went down.

Nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw could remember nothing of Wednesday's crash and was not yet aware that his parents and 11-year-old brother had died in the accident, the Dutch newspaper Telegraaf reported.

"My name is Ruben and I am from Holland," Telegraaf reported on a telephone conversation with the only survivor of the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330 that disintegrated on landing at Tripoli airport.

"I am fine, but my legs hurt a lot," the boy told a reporter from the newspaper on the mobile phone of one of his doctors.

"I am in a hospital," Ruben said. "I don't know how I got here, I don't know anything more. I really want to go home."

A doctor who operated on the boy's smashed legs said yesterday that his condition was improving and that he could travel home. The Dutch Foreign Ministry said the boy should arrive back in the Netherlands today.

Ruben "will be accompanied by his uncle and aunt and the doctor treating him," spokesman Christoph Prommersberger said.

Officials said 70 Dutch citizens were among the 103 people killed in the crash, although Afriqiyah Airways said yesterday there were 67 Dutch on board, including the boy.

The airline said Flight 771 was also carrying 13 South Africans, 13 Libyans including the 11 crew, as well as four Belgians, two Austrians, one Briton, a French citizen, a German and a Zimbabwean.

Meanwhile, crash investigators said no technical problems were reported by the pilot before the jet went down.

"The pilot did not report any problems. Until the very last moment things were normal between the pilot and the control tower," Neji Dhaou, the head of the commission of inquiry, said.

"What I can confirm for now is that the aircraft struck the ground before reaching the runway," he said, adding the investigators "have ruled out nothing for the moment".

The Dutch newspaper Brabants Dagblad said Ruben was probably from Tilburg in the southern Netherlands and that he had been on safari in South Africa with his mother Trudy, 41, father Patrick, 40, and brother Enzo, 11.