More than 150 die in Nigeria airplane crash
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Emergency workers in Nigeria fought fires and searched for corpses through the night in a neighborhood that an airliner plowed into, killing all 153 on board. Rescue officials said today they fear many people may have perished on the ground too.
After pilots reported engine trouble, the Boeing MD-83 of Dana Air crashed into businesses and crowded apartment buildings near Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport on Sunday, the worst air disaster in Nigeria in nearly two decades.
“The fear is that since it happened in a residential area, there may have been many people killed,” said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.
The cause of the crash remained unclear today. The pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, reporting engine trouble, a military official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Rescue workers searched for the aircraft’s black box recorders where flight data is stored, said Harold Demuren, the director-general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.
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