A commercial airliner crashed into a densely populated neighborhood in Nigeria’s largest city Lagos on Sunday, killing around 153 people on board and others on the ground. This is the worst air disaster in nearly two decades for the troubled 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 MD83 aircraft. Authorities could not control the crowd of thousands gathered around to see the crash site, with some crawling over the plane’s broken wings and standing on a still-smoldering landing gear.
Nobody survived in Nigerian plane crash
It is not yet clear how many people may have died on the ground. All what we know the plane crashed in Iju neighbourhood, north of the airport. As night began to fall Sunday, more and more worried relatives of passengers arrived in the neighborhood, pushing their way down the crowded, narrow streets to make it to the crash site. One man stopped to ask about the crash, whether any passengers walked away alive.
Soldiers tried to disperse the onlookers using rubber whips and even their fists, the one of witnesses said. Some local residents reacted by throwing stones at the troops to resque Nigeria plane.
Technical problem in Nigeria plane
Plane wreckage including a detached wing was scattered around and the body of the plane was lodged into a building.
The wreckage was on fire and black smoke billowed. Several charred corpses could be seen in the rubble. The Nigeria’s plane did not to appear to have nose-dived into the building, but to have landed on its belly, careering into a furniture shop and a print works, reports said.
While local residents helped carry fire hoses to the crash site, the major challenges of life in oil-rich Nigeria plane quickly became apparent as there wasn’t any water to put out the flames more than three hours later. Some young men carried plastic buckets of water to the fire, trying to douse small portions. Fire trucks, from the very few that are stationed in Lagos state with a population of 17.5 million, couldn’t carry enough water. Officials commandeered water trucks from nearby construction sites, but they became stuck on the narrow, crowded roads, unable to reach the crash site.
An investigation to be started in plane disaster in Lagos
An investigation is under way but in difficult night-time conditions, says the BBC’s East Africa correspondent Will Ross. The cockpit recorder had been found and given to police, PFA officials told. In a statement, President Jonathan declared three days of mourning and said he had ordered the fullest possible investigation in case of Lagos diseaster into the crash.
The flight’s pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, saying the plane had engine trouble, a military official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
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