All 147 people on Nigeria crash flight killed

There were no survivors among the 147 people on board a domestic passenger aircraft that crashed in the Nigerian city of Lagos on Sunday, an official of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said. The plane, operated by privately owned airline Dana Air, was coming into land on a flight from the capital Abuja when it crashed into a two-story building in a poor residential area of the city, officials and witnesses said. Earlier, 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. Neither Dana Air nor the civil aviation authority were available for comment. Air crashes are not uncommon in Nigeria, Africa's second biggest economy, which has a poor airline safety record. Dana Air's website says it operates Boeing MD-83 planes to cities around Nigeria out of Murtala Muhammed Airport.

Plane crashes in Nigeria, all 153 aboard dead PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO Last Update 3:45 p.m. ET (CBS/AP) LAGOS, Nigeria - An aviation official says that all passengers on board the plane that crashed in Nigeria's largest city have been killed. Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority Harold Denuren confirmed that all the passengers on Sunday's Dana Air flight died. He did not say how many were on the flight. However, the Lagos state government said in a statement that 153 people were on the flight going from Abuja to Lagos. The plane crashed in a densely-populated neighborhood near the airport. A spokesman for Nigeria's national emergency management agency said there were likely more casualties on the ground, but the number was unknown. Several thousand gathered at the site as firefighters tried to put out flames and carry out survivors. 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. "I don't think there will be any survivors," said witness Praise Richard. "It would take a miracle." People gather at the site of a plane crash in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday, June 3, 2012. The passenger plane carrying more than 150 people crashed in Nigeria's largest city on Sunday, government officials said. (Credit: AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Richard said he was watching a film when he heard a loud explosion that sounded like a bomb. He rushed outside and saw massive smoke and flames rising from the crash site around 3:45 p.m.

The Dana Air flight was flying from Abuja to Lagos, according to the head of Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority, Harold Denuren. The plane did not to appear to have nose-dived into a building, but seemed to have landed on its belly. It first crashed through a furniture shop and then into residential buildings next to the workshop in this densely packed neighborhood. The nose of the plane was embedded into the three-story apartment building, damaging only one part of the structure. Fire still smoldered everywhere as a group of men stood atop the landing gear that was smoking and took pictures with their mobile phones. At the crash site, an Associated Press reporter saw parts of the plane's seat signs scattered around. Firefighters tried to put out the smoldering flames of a jet engine and carried at least one corpse from the building that continued to crumble. Several thousand people looked on. Two fire trucks and about 50 rescue personnel were at the site after the plane went down. Some of those gathered around the site helped firefighters bring in the water hoses from their trucks. The Nigerian Red Cross arrived, as well as Nigeria's air crash safety investigators. A military helicopter flew overhead. The sound of the crowd was also occasionally punctuated by the noise of aircraft still landing at the airport. 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. The Nigerian government said it also now has full radar coverage of the entire nation. 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.