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Sunday Alamba / AP
Onlookers gather at the site of a plane crash Sunday in Lagos, Nigeria,
Updated at 5:19 p.m. ET: Nigerian authorities said Sunday that as many as 153 people were aboard a Dana Airlines passenger jet that crashed into a two-story building in Lagos, the country's largest city. "I don't believe there are any survivors," said Harold Denuren, Nigeria's director of aviation.
Authorities said that in addition to the passengers and crew aboard the plane, an unknown number of people may also have been killed or hurt on the ground. President Goodluck Jonathan canceled all appointments for Monday and declared three days of official mourning for the victims.
The plane was heading from Abuja, the capital, to Lagos when it went down about 3:30 p.m. local time (10:30 a.m. ET), authorities said. It crashed into a building and broke into two before burning up, witnesses said.
Local reports indicated that at least three buildings were severely damaged, one of them a church. Nigerian Eye reported from the scene that bodies could be seen burning on the ground, while pictures on the Internet showed large plumes of smoke across the city.
Police said they had recovered the plane's voice recorder. Al Jazeera reported from Abuja that witnesses said the the plane may have hit a power line in clear and sunny weather.
Razak Fadipe, acting head of the Lagos fire service, told The Daily Times of Nigeria that no one had been rescued alive as of 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. ET) but that people were likely to be trapped in the one of the buildings.
Poor road access and a crowd of hundreds of people were complicating rescue efforts, in some cases blocking fire crews from reaching the scene.
"Our job is crucial to the rescue efforts," Fadipe said. "Without us doing our job, other rescue teams cannot gain access to even rescue any survivors that may be trapped in the building."
The Daily Times quoted a senior official of Dana Airlines, whom it didn't identify, as saying the plane had been undergoing repairs for several weeks.
"The station manager protested its use, but the Indian management insisted it should fly," the official said, according to The Daily Times.
The crash came after 10 other people were killed when a Boeing 727 cargo plane flying from Lagos crashed Saturday in Accra, the capital of Ghana, and hit a bus, the Sunday Tribune of Nigeria reported.
The crew of four survived, authorities said.
A senior military officer told the Sunday Tribune that the bus was severely damaged, while the plane's wings and tail broke off from its body.
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If you are talking about the microburst one, it had more to do with a sudden loss of airspeed and subsequent loss of lift caused by the downdraft and airflow.
That one has become a classic training scenario for pilots.
I don't know what the TSA has to do with this plane crash? This is a tragedy that happened today. I don't think they know the cause yet.
One thing I DO know, however, is that those who Choose to Praise the TSA are the Very People Who Want to Relinquish Freedom for Security!!!!!
Why is it that we can see the remaining wreckage of this plane crash? Here we can at least see an engine. But we never really saw any aircraft parts of the plane that supposedly hit the Pentagon or the one that supposedly went down in Pennsylvania? Just asking. . .
The pilot was an American, so keep mocking it you rude people.
I lived in that country for 26 years of my 34 years adult life. The Indians and Chinese control most businesses. Because of poor or non-existence oversight from government agencies responsible for safety, those people put the quest for quick profit over the safety of the flying public.
I would argue that it is combination of training, maintenance, and experience that drives the safety record of a specific airline and the countries that sponsor those airlines. As with any operation, the three facets of a successful flight involve cost, performance, and schedule. If you influence one, you inadvertently affect the other two. This could be in a positive or negative manner. And when you affect the cost, performance, or schedule of training, maintenance, and experience, you are destined to affect the flight envelope of an aircraft in motion. Statistically, worldwide- air travel is the safest form of transportation. But if you were to dissect that statistic by geography, cost, performance, and schedule, you will find that there ARE regions of the planet where your odds of having a departure from normal flight envelope and experience a rapid deceleration followed by dirt poisoning. Those regions can be categorized by Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Southeast Asia, and yes, Western Africa.
Don't get me wrong; we have accidents here in North America too. But again statistics play in part here: Even in our @!$%#ty economy, we still possess one of the busiest airspaces on the planet. But our communication barriers are easier to overcome than from a foreign country. After all, we built a majority of the aircraft in use today. To interpret (even loosely) the training orders and technical manuals might get lost during the operation or the maintenance of the aircraft. I am not saying that happened here with this mishap, but it is something to consider...It could have just been bad luck, but I am leaning on the combination thingy...
Statistically, there are a LOT (I won't say thousands) of aircraft operating in Africa. I will say that a majority of the aircraft operating in Africa airspace are on average 20 years older than north American or European aircraft. The reason why is because they cannot afford the new aircraft so they buy second-hand aircraft from those airlines that can afford to upgrade to the new and improved models. To recoup some of the cost of procuring the new aircraft, those airlines sell to third world countries that cannot afford the latest models.
SWEET !!!