Sunday, June 3, 2012

FOXNews.com: Passenger Plane Crashes In Nigeria's Largest City

FOXNews.com
FOX News Channel - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Passenger Plane Crashes In Nigeria's Largest City
Jun 3rd 2012, 17:53

LAGOS, Nigeria –  A plane struck a two-story building in Nigeria's largest city of Lagos on Sunday, resulting in an unknown number of casualties, officials said.

 The head of the Civil Aviation Authority told AFP that the plane was carrying 153 passengers.

"I don't believe there are any survivors,"  Harold Demuren said.

The Dana Air flight was taking passengers from Lagos to Abuja, said Harold Denuren, head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.

Federal emergency management confirmed the crash in a neighborhood just outside the airport and said that its emergency personnel were on their way to the scene.

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.

On Saturday, a  Boeing 727 cargo plane coming from Lagos crashed at Ghana's international airport, killing at least 10 people after it slammed through a fence and onto a nearby street, the country's transit company said Sunday.

The crash occurred in Accra near Kotoka International Airport, which sits near newly built high-rise buildings and hotels. Witnesses said the plane first smashed through the fence that runs around the airport before hitting a bus.

Randy Banahene, a taxi driver who saw the crash, said an explosion sound was heard when the plane hit a wall. He said the plane landed on its belly across a road, its nose nicked and tail bent with punctures on its side, just yards from a residential neighborhood.

Officials opened an investigation into the crash Sunday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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