The plane overshot the runway in Port Harcourt and burst into flame.

A memorial service is being held there for the victims who included 70 pupils from the same secondary school.

Later on Tuesday the president is to attend a crisis meeting with aviation and airline officials and members of the public to discuss aviation reform.

Four of the seven survivors of the crash have since died in Nigeria's second air disaster in less than two months.

A statement issued by the president's office said the permanent secretary in the aviation ministry, Tommy Oyelade, and another senior official had been sent on indefinite leave.

"Unless we do something and do it fast, people will lose confidence in the industry," Mr Obasanjo as he visited the crash site on Monday.

'Only child'

Investigators have begun sifting through the wreckage of the DC-9 and analysing the flight data recorders after the crash which it is now known killed 106 people.

A Catholic Archbishop, John Onaiyekan of Abuja, said 71 pupils from Abuja's Ignatius Loyola Jesuit College died in the crash.

Many of the pupils' families had been at Port Harcourt's airport to collect their children and witnessed the crash in the capital of Nigeria's main oil-producing region.

The victims also included a French and a US national working for aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The privately-run Sosoliso Airlines, which owned the plane, went into operation as a domestic airline in 2000 and now flies to six Nigerian cities.

The president, said to be deeply saddened by the accident, cancelled a visit to Portugal to deal with the air disaster.

Correspondents say several Nigerian airports have come under criticism in recent months following a string of accidents and near-misses.

A Boeing 737 aircraft crashed in October shortly after take-off from the commercial capital Lagos, killing all 117 people on board.

The flight recorders from that plane were never found.

Mr Obasanjo had instructed his aviation minister to plug any loopholes to ensure airline safety.

|BBC|

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