Cotonou, Benin ? A jetliner clipped a building during takeoff Thursday and crashed into the sea off the West African nation of Benin, killing dozens of Lebanese workers on their way home for the holidays.

A witness said 90 passengers were dead, while a doctor said 57 had been taken to a hospital morgue and more bodies were being retrieved from the water.

The chartered Boeing 727 bound for Beirut had just lifted off from the seaside airport in Cotonou, Benin’s commercial capital, said Jerome Dandjinou, a senior airport security official.

“The back of the plane hit a building at the end of the runway. There was a fire, and an explosion was heard,” Dandjinou told The Associated Press. “The plane exploded and the debris fell into the water.”

Airport officials in Beirut said the plane was chartered from United Transit Airlines; but officials in Guinea, where the plan began its trip, identified the company as Union des Transports Africain. Air France said the company was unrelated to the former French airline UTA, which was absorbed by Air France a decade ago.

It was unclear how many people were on the plane. Benin’s transport minister, Ahmed Akobi, said there were 156 passengers and an unknown number of crew, while an official with UTA said 253 people were on board.

Dozens of bodies — men, women, children and babies — floated among the plane’s wreckage about 150 yards off a Cotonou beach. Fishermen and residents waded into the water to search for survivors and recover the dead.

Television images showed pieces of the plane lying in the surf: a shorn-off landing gear, part of a wing, the cockpit and the rear part of the fuselage, along with an engine.

Tangled wires and metal hung from the ripped-open fuselage. One man sat in the sand, blood running down his bare chest. Another injured man held his head.

Two men observe the cockpit wreckage from a plane crash on the beach near Cotonou in Benin. A jetliner carrying Lebanese workers home for the holidays crashed Thursday into the sea shortly after takeoff in the West African nation of Benin, killing up to 90 people, witnesses said.

One of the Lebanese survivors, Nabil Hashem, told Al Manar television in Beirut that he had been in the back of the plane and was able to swim to safety.

“Those in the front were the most hurt,” Hashem said. “May God’s mercy fall on them. It was a horrible scene.”

Ghabi Koudieh, a Lebanese expatriate in Cotonou, told Al Manar that 90 bodies were pulled out from the sea. At least 80 were Lebanese, he said. Other witnesses said there were about 35 Lebanese survivors.

Martin Chobli, a doctor with the emergency medical service, SAMU, said at least 22 people had survived and at least 57 had been taken to a hospital morgue.

“We are receiving reports that more bodies are coming out of the water,” Chobli said.

He said the army, the paramilitary police and the Red Cross all had rescue teams at the scene.