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Nigeria: 15 feared dead in plane crash near Lagos Airport
(Reuters) – Fifteen people were killed when an Embraer passenger plane crashed shortly after take-off just outside Lagos airport’s domestic terminal on Thursday, Nigerian authorities said.
Airports Authority general manager Yakubu Dati told a news conference the plane was an Embraer 120, a Brazilian make.
The Associated Airlines plane was flying from Nigeria’s commercial capital to Akure, a southwestern town about 225 kilometers (140 miles) away.
“An Embraer 120 plane came down at 9.32 a.m. (4:32 a.m. EDT) with 20 passengers on board, inclusive of crew, and five people survived,” Dati said. “We have recovered the black box.”
He said he did not know the engine’s maker. But a diplomatic source told reporters the engine was a Pratt & Whitney Canada, a unit of United Technologies Corp, PW100.
Aviation Ministry spokesman Joe Obi had earlier said 27 people were on the plane but Lagos state emergency management agency Olufemi Damilola Oke-Osanyintolu said at the site that in fact only 20 of the 27 seats were filled.
Several local radio stations and Channels TV reported that it was carrying a family and the body of former governor of Ondo state Olusegun Agagu to his funeral.
“The plane was making a lot of noise before it came down,” said witness Rasheed Olajide, an engineer working at the airport. “It appeared to reverse back to avoid crashing into the residential area. It came down at a 45 degree angle.”
This is the second fatal air crashes in Nigeria within the past 18 months – in June last year, 163 people died when a Dana Air plane crashed into a Lagos apartment block in the country’s worst airline disaster in two decades.