Weather at major West
African airport was clear
and sunny at time of crash
Photo Galleries The wreckage of a plane burns
in Nigeria's commercial capital
Lagos. The city's airport is a
major hub for West Africa.
(Reuters) Report Typo Send Feedback Reports say more than 140
people are dead after a
passenger plane slammed into
a two-storey building in
Nigeria's largest city of Lagos
shortly after taking off. Harold Denuren, head of the
Nigerian Civil Aviation
Authority, said the Dana Air
flight was heading from Lagos
to Abuja in Nigeria. The Lagos state government
said in a statement that 153
people were on the Dana Air
flight Sunday while
emergency officials have put
the figure at 140 to 150. Yushau Shuaib, spokesman for
the National Emergency
Management Agency, said
they were still trying to get
an official manifest on the
flight. Sometimes flights in Nigeria issue paper tickets and
don't record all passengers via
computer. Firefighters searching for
survivors have pulled at least
one body from the building,
which was cratered by the
plane. Two firetrucks and about 50
rescue personnel converged
on the crash site an hour after
it happened. A military
helicopter also flew overhead. The plane appeared to have
landed on its belly, rather than
taking a nosedive. It first
crashed through a furniture
shop and then into residential
buildings next to the shop. The nose of the plane was
embedded into the three-
storey apartment building,
damaging one part of the
structure. Fire still smoldered
everywhere. Al-Jazeera is also reporting
that witnesses on the ground
believe the aircraft may have
hit a power line and crashed
into the building. Dana Air took to the skies in
November 2008 and now
operates 18 daily flights to
four Nigeria cities: Abuja,
Lagos, Port Harcourt and Uyo. The weather in Lagos, a port
city of 8 million, on Sunday
was clear and sunny. Lagos' international airport is
a major hub for West Africa
and saw 2.3 million passengers
pass through it in 2009,
according to the most recent
statistics provided by the Federal Airports Authority of
Nigeria. In August 2010, the U.S.
announced it had given
Nigeria the FAA's Category 1
status, its top safety rating
that allows the nation's
domestic carriers to fly directly to the U.S. However, in a nation where
the state-run electricity
company is in tatters, state
power and diesel generators
sometimes both fail at
airports, making radar screens go blank. With files from The Associated
Press
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