Pilot, Airline Official Get 20 Years in Jail over Fatal Cotonou Crash

A Lebanese court on Tuesday sentenced to 20 years in prison the pilot of Beirut-bound UTA Flight 141, which crashed off the West African coast in 2003 killing at least 136 people, a judicial source said.

Libyan pilot Najib al-Barouni, who remains at large, was found guilty of neglect, the source told Agence France Presse.

Lebanese Darwish Khazem, a representative of the privately owned Lebanese-Guinean airline, received the same sentence in absentia.

Imad Saba, the Palestinian-American owner of the Boeing 727, UTA general manager Ahmed Khazem and UTA operations chief Mohammed Khazem were also handed prison sentences ranging from three months to three years. The three were present for the hearing.

All five were ordered to pay a total of 930,000 dollars (666,714 euros) in compensation to the families of the victims.

Flight 141 crashed shortly after takeoff from Cotonou, the main city of the West African state of Benin, on Christmas Day 2003, killing at least 136 persons on board, the majority of them Lebanese.

The total number of passengers was estimated at around 160 but was never confirmed.

The charge sheet said 113 people were killed and 23 others never found. Twenty-two people survived the crash.

An investigation revealed that an overweight of several tons was behind the accident.(AFP)