Mystery surrounds cause of Nigeria’s worst air disaster

Mystery still surrounds the cause of an airline crash in Nigeria which killed all 153 on board and possibly many more on the ground when it crashed into apartment buildings and businesses.
By The Newsroom
Published 4th Jun 2012, 20:46 BST

Emergency workers in Nigeria fought fires and searched for bodies through the night as thousands of onlookers gathered at the crash site of the Boeing MD83 aircraft.

Nigeria has a history of major aviation disasters. Nigeria’s air crash safety investigators are now piecing together what caused the devastating incident, while president Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning.

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The aircraft appeared to have landed on its belly amid clear, sunny skies on to the dense neighbourhood on the approach path taken by aircraft heading into Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport.

The tragedy is the latest in a number of fatal plane crashes in Nigeria over the past decade.

In October 2006, 96 people were killed after a flight from Abuja to Sokoto crashed. This came after two horrific crashes in October and December 2005, which killed 117 and 107 people respectively.

The cause of the crash remained unclear. The pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, reporting engine trouble, a military official said.