157 Reported Dead in Libyan Plane Crash

A Libyan plane crashed Tuesday during a domestic flight, killing all 157 people aboard, the Libyan news agency JANA said.

The Boeing 727, which carried foreigners as well as Libyans, went down on a flight from Benghazi to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, JANA said.

Libyan flights have been functioning only inside the country because an air travel ban is part of U.N. sanctions imposed in April to punish Libya for refusing to hand over two Libyans suspected in the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

The plane that crashed Tuesday was Flight 1103, a number some called suspicious.

“I think the coincidence of the two flight numbers on the fourth anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster is a bit sinister,” Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the 1988 bombing, said in London.