TRIPOLI, Libya -- Authorities said Friday that the Dutch boy who is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Libya may be flown home to the Netherlands as early as this weekend, offering a glimmer of hope as investigators began the daunting task of identifying bodies and determining the crash's cause. Rescuers found nine-year-old Ruben Van Assouw still strapped in his seat and breathing in an area of desert sand strewn with the plane's debris. His father, mother and 11-year-old brother are believed to have been among the 103 people on board who were killed Wednesday when their flight from South Africa crashed short of the runway in Tripoli. Dutch Foreign Ministry official Ed Kronenburg said authorities think the boy could return home this weekend. "I think he's fine under the current conditions," Kronenburg said. "We hope that we will be able to make preparations for his return, hopefully this weekend, but it's all subject ... to medical examinations and agreement of the doctors that he's fit for travel." The child was recovering well after 4 1/2 hours of surgery to repair multiple fractures to his legs. His aunt and uncle rushed to Libya from the Netherlands and were visiting him in a hospital in Tripoli. The boy, contacted by phone by a Dutch newspaper, said he could not remember the crash. "I don't know how I got here, I don't know anything else," he told a reporter from De Telegraaf. "I just want to get going. I want to get washed, dressed and then go." The newspaper said a doctor handed his mobile phone to the boy to let him talk to its reporter. The interview angered Dutch officials since the foreign minister had asked the press to respect the boy's privacy and not contact relatives of the victims, the Dutch state broadcaster NOS reported. Most of those on board the Afriqiyah Airways flight from Johannesburg were Dutch tourists. The Airbus 330-200 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. Investigators from the United States, France, South Africa, and the Netherlands are helping Libya with the probe.
