MD-83 passenger plane crashes in Lagos, Nigeria, more than 150 people onboard killed

Monday, 04 June 2012 09:06

Accident - Accident and Incident

A Nigerian Airline Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane has crashed into a two-story building in the densely-populated Nigerian city of Lagos. All those on board are reported to have died in the crash.

 Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane has crashed into a two-story building

 in the densely-populated Nigerian city of Lagos

The plane was carrying more than 150 passengers, according to the head of the Civil Aviation Authority.

Harold Demuren confirmed that all the passengers on the plane died in Sunday's crash.

The Lagos state government said in a statement that 153 people were on the flight from Abuja to Lagos.

A spokesman for Nigeria's national emergency management agency said more casualties on the ground were likely, but the number was still unknown.

Officials said the crash occurred just outside the airport in Lagos. The plane reportedly hit a furniture shop before slamming into an apartment building.

Thousands of people crowded around the wreckage, which was billowing black smoke, in the Agege suburb of the city, not far from Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed Airport. Witnesses said they saw the plane strike a building and burst into flames.

Some looked stunned, while others took pictures with their mobile phones of the crash scene, in a run down part of the city where ramshackle tin-roofed houses line mud roads.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared three days of national mourning after the crash.

A statement from his office said he had also cancelled all his engagements on Monday and ordered the "fullest possible investigation" into the crash.

Lagos is Nigeria's commercial capital and largest city, with an estimated population of 15 million people.

Dana Air is one of Nigeria's main airlines and has been operating since November 2008. Its website says it flies a fleet of Boeing MD-83 aircraft.

On Saturday, an Allied Air Boeing 727 cargo plane coming from Lagos was involved in a crash at the main airport in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. At least 10 people died when the aircraft overshot the runway and hit a small van full of passengers.(AP/Reuters/DW/AC)