Nigerian air crash kills all on-board

LAGOS, NIGERIA – A commercial airliner crashed into a densely populated neighbourhood in Nigeria’s largest city on Sunday, killing all 153 people on board and others on the ground in 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.

Harold Demuren, the director-general of Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority, said all on board the flight were killed in the crash. Lagos state government said in a statement that 153 people were on the flight travelling from Nigeria’s central capital of Abuja to Lagos in the nation’s southwest.

Rescue officials feared many others were killed or injured on the ground, but no casualty figures were immediately available. Firefighters and locals were seen carrying the corpse of a man from one building, its walls still crumbling and flames shooting from its roof more than an hour after the crash.

President Goodluck Jonathan later declared three days of national mourning in Africa’s most populous nation.

The aircraft appeared to have landed on its belly into the dense neighbourhood.

The dead included at least four Chinese citizens, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported late Sunday.