A plane carrying 153 people has plunged into a residential area of Nigeria’s largest city, with all those aboard feared dead, an inferno igniting at the scene and buildings badly damaged. A number of people on the ground were also believed killed, an emergency official said on Sunday, as around 10 burnt bodies had been removed from a building damaged in the crash.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning for victims of the crash and pledged an investigation as rescuers rushed to pull out survivors from the neighbourhood near the airport.
The cause of the crash of the Dana airline Boeing MD83 plane was unclear, but the emergency official as well as an aviation official said the cockpit recorder had been located and handed over to police.
Officials confirmed no survivors from the plane had been found by 10pm on Sunday evening (0700 Monday AEST) – more than six hours after the crash.
They said they did not believe any would be located, but search-and-rescue missions continued.
Thick smoke rose from the area and flames could be seen shooting from a two-storey building in the afternoon. The plane crashed in a plot containing what residents described as a church, a printing shop and the two-storey residential building.
Chaos broke out as thousands of residents swarmed the area and authorities sought to restore calm, with rocks and wood planks being thrown back and forth. Some residents tried to help by guiding fire hoses through the crowds.
Some residents said it appeared that the plane had nose-dived into the neighbourhood while others described it as swaying back and forth before crashing.
“It was waving, waving, waving,” Yusuf Babatunde, 26, said at the scene. “The pilot was struggling to control it. It crashed – it just started burning.”
“It was a Dana (airline) flight out of (the capital) Abuja to Lagos with about 153 people on board,” Nigeria’s head of civil aviation Harold Demuren told AFP.
“I don’t believe there are any survivors.”
The official with the National Emergency Management Agency said the plane had crashed onto two buildings: a church and the two-storey residential structure.
A look at recent major airline crashes in Nigeria:
—June 3: A Dana Air flight from Abuja to Lagos crashes killing all 153 people on board and an unknown number of people on the ground. Investigators have begun looking into the cause.
—Oct. 29, 2006: An Aviation Development Co. flight from Abuja to Sokoto crashes, killing 96 people, including the top spiritual leader for the nation’s Muslims. The plane crashed 76 seconds after going airborne. An investigative report found that just before the crash alarms began sounding in the cockpit and that the pilots’ incorrect actions stalled the plane. The report read: “Although bad weather may have created the situation, which the pilots reacted to, they reacted inappropriately.”
—Dec. 10, 2005: A Sosoliso Airlines flight full of schoolchildren flying from Abuja to Port Harcourt crashes, killing 107 people. A U.S. Federal Aviation Administration report later says the pilot was “reportedly racing a thunderstorm” nearing the airport. The report said inclement weather also forced the pilot to make an instrument landing — meaning that visibility had been reduced to the point the pilot needed to rely on instruments to make his landing.
—Oct. 22, 2005: A Bellview Airlines flight crashes, killing 117 people, including a U.S. citizen, after nose-diving into the ground at high speed. An investigative report later said the plane’s captain, a 49-year-old former pilot, had been hired by Bellview after he had been working at a dairy for about 14 years. The report said the pilot also had been “shot in the head during a robbery attempt” during that break from flying.
—May 4, 2002: An EAS airliner with 77 people aboard crashes into a bustling working-class neighborhood in the northern city of Kano just after takeoff. Only four people aboard survived the crash, which killed dozens more on the ground. In total, at least 149 people were killed.
—Sept. 27, 1992: A military transport plane crashes into a swamp shortly after takeoff from Lagos. All 163 army soldiers, relatives and crew members on board were killed.