All aircraft in Nigeria will be required to ensure strict compliance to operations requirement and standards in order to "plug loopholes" in the country's aviation industry, President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Tuesday, after a deadly airliner crash killed all 117 on board.

"We must draw strong lessons from this experience and we shall leave no stone unturned to ensure the highest standards in the aviation industry," Obasanjo said in his first nationwide broadcast, since the Saturday crash and death of his wife only hours afterward.

A Boeing 737-200 airliner operated by local Bellview Airlines carrying 111 passengers and six crew members nosedived into the ground and disintegrated several minutes after it took off from Lagos, the country's largest city, en route to Abuja, the capital on Saturday evening.

Although some reports initially had it some people had survived, it ended up on Sunday evening with government confirmation that all people on board died.

"I have already ordered a full and thorough investigation into the cause of the air crash with a view to ensuring that this sort of calamity does not repeat itself," said Obasanjo.

On Monday, Nigerian Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade ruled out the age of the plane which is manufactured in 1981 and allegedly still in serviceable condition is to blame.

"The co-pilot had his wife on board. Therefore, if the co-pilot had any doubt about the worthiness of the aircraft, he would not have put his wife and himself on board," said Borishade. "We have competent evidence that the aircraft is healthy."

He said the US government will voluntarily send two forensic experts to the crash site in Lissa village, Ogun state, about 30 km northwest of Lagos international airport, to help determine what brought the plane down.

Bellview, a privately owned Nigerian company, is considered one of the safest local airlines and has not suffered a crash before.

On Sunday evening, Fidelis Onyeyiri, director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, said the plane may have been struck by lightning before it went down.

The nationalities of those on board might be known this weekend, according to Borishade. So far, Nigerian Postmaster General Alhaji Abubakar Musa Argungu and Economic Community of West African States Deputy Executive Secretary Oumar Diarra were confirmed among the victims.

The latest crash also added to the catalogue of air mishaps in the most populous nation in the continent, including one in May 2002 when an airliner slammed into a residential area in the northern city of Kano, killing some 150 people both on board and on the ground.

Obasanjo, whose wife Stella Obasanjo died in a Spanish hospital after surgery in the early hours of Sunday, announced that Ogun state government would organize an interfaith memorial service at the crash site on Thursday and all Nigerians would observe a minute's silence at mid-day on Wednesday.

All Nigerian citizens during the minute silence should "pray for the repose of the souls of the departed, the comfort and consolation of the bereaved and for peace, security and protection of our dear country," he added.

Source: Xinhua