Jon Gambrell
The Associated Press
A commercial airliner crashed into a densely populated neighborhood in Nigeria’s largest city, killing all 153 people on board and others on the ground in the worst air disaster in nearly two decades for the nation.
The cause of the Dana Air crash remained unknown Sunday night as firefighters and police struggled to put out the flames around the wreckage of the Boeing MD-83 aircraft.
Harold Demuren, the director-general of Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority, said all on the flight were killed. Lagos state government said 153 people were on the flight traveling from Nigeria’s central capital, Abuja, to Lagos.
The flight’s pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, saying the plane had engine trouble, a military official told the Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
Rescue officials feared many others were killed or injured on the ground, but no casualty figures were immediately available, said Yushau Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning in Africa’s most populous nation.
The aircraft appeared to have landed on its belly into the dense neighborhood that sits along the typical flight approach to Lagos’ airport. The plane tore through roofs and rammed into a woodworking studio and at least two large apartment buildings before stopping.
While local residents helped carry fire hoses to the crash site, the major challenges of life in Nigeria became apparent as there wasn’t any water to put out the flames more than three hours later.
Nigeria has a history of major aviation disasters, though there hadn’t been a crash in recent years.
Sunday’s crash appeared to be the worst since September 1992, when a military transport plane crashed into a swamp shortly after takeoff from Lagos. All 163 army soldiers, relatives and crewmembers on board were killed.
Officials with Lagos-based Dana Air did not respond to calls for comment Sunday night.
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