Libya crash: Miracle boy meets kin

The Dutch Foreign Ministry said the boy said his name was Ruben,he was 9-years-old and he was from the southern city of Tilburg in the Netherlands. The Dutch daily Brabants Dagblad quoted a woman named An van de Sande as saying her grandson Ruben was in South Africa on safari with his brother and parents,who were celebrating their wedding anniversary. However,she said relatives who had seen TV footage of the boy in the hospital were reluctant to confirm his identity.

The Afriqiyah Airways jet that crashed just before touchdown in Libya on Wednesday may have been attempting a go-around in poor visibility caused by sunlit haze,safety officials and pilots familiar with the airport said Thursday. Both black boxes,the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder,were immediately recovered at the crash site in the capital,Tripoli. Investigators from the US,France,South Africa,the Netherlands are reportedly helping Libya with the probe into the causes of the accident.

Dr Hameeda al-Saheli,the head of the pediatric unit at the Libyan hospital where the boy is being treated,said he is breathing normally and his vital organs are intact. She told the official Libyan news agency he suffered four fractures in his legs and lost a lot of blood,but his neck,skull and brain were not affected and he did not suffer internal bleeding.

As soon as his health permits he will be brought to the Netherlands, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said. Officials at al-Khadra hospital said three Westerners visiting the boy Thursday were his relatives. The Dutch Foreign Ministry said the boys aunt and uncle were in Tripoli. The hospital officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Libyan television showed images of the boy laying on a hospital bed breathing through an oxygen mask. The Airbus A330-200 was completing a more than seven-hour flight across from Johannesburg when it crashed.