261 Die as a Flight for Muslim Pilgrims Crashes Near Jidda

An airliner carrying Muslim pilgrims home to Nigeria crashed in flames today while trying to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff, killing at least 261 people, officials and witnesses said.

The DC-8 plane nose-dived onto the tarmac and exploded, scattering bodies across the Saudi desert, airport officials and the witnesses said.

There were no survivors, but the exact number of people aboard the plane was in dispute. The plane, leased from the Montreal-based carrier Nationair by a Nigerian company, Holdtrade, was flying from Jidda to Sokoto, Nigeria. Report of 'Technical Trouble'

The Saudi and Nigerian Governments said that 261 people, including a 14-member crew, were on the plane. The Nigerian Government said the crew included Americans and Canadians, but Nationair reported later that all of the crew members were Canadian.

If the toll of 261 dead is confirmed, the crash would be the 10th-worst commercial air disaster on record.

Airport officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the pilot was trying to return to King Abdel-Aziz international airport after reporting "technical trouble."

Other aviation employees said the pilot had reported fire in the plane's landing gear. They said he was advised to dump his fuel and return, but that the plane hit the ground and exploded into pieces about half a mile from the main runway. Robes Reduced to Tatters

Khaled Nazer, an editor of the Arab News, an English-language daily in Jidda, said the bodies of some passengers were burned and dismembered, and their white robes "reduced to black tatters."

Holdtrade, which charters aircraft to carry Muslim pilgrims, was set up by Ibrahim Dasuki, son of the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, the Sultan of Sokoto.

The Nigerians were returning home after performing the hajj, an annual Muslim pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

The hajj is frequently marred by accidental deaths or political or religious attacks. Until the crash today, this year's pilgrimage season had been relatively free of trouble. Dispute on Passenger List

In Nigeria, thousands of relatives of the victims massed at the Lagos airport and in the Sokoto offices of Nigeria Airlines and the charter company to await information on the crash. Sokoto is in the heartland of Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria.

The Saudi and Nigerian Governments said in separate announcements that 261 people, including a 14-member crew, were aboard the plane. The Nigerian announcement said the crew included Americans and Canadians, but it could not be verified that Americans were on board.

An agent at Areen Travel in Jidda, which arranged the charter, said 249 Nigerian passengers and a crew of 11 Canadians, one Briton, one Irishwoman and a French citizen were aboard the flight.

But Nationair officials said their plane was carrying 250 passengers and a crew of 14 -- four from Toronto and the rest from other parts of Ontario. The discrepancies could not be immediately reconciled.

Nationair was founded in the mid-1980's by a Montreal businessman, Robert Obadia.

Last year, in the worst hajj disaster in modern times, 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel connecting holy sites at Mecca.