LEADERSHIP/THE NIGERIAN TRIBUNE (Nigeria)
LAGOS – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared three days of mourning following Sunday’s plane crash. The Dana Airline plane crashed in a densely populated district of Lagos on Sunday afternoon, killing all 153 passengers. Only 60 bodies have been recovered so far. The number of victims on the ground is still uncertain, according to the Nigerian Tribune. The huge fire resulting from the crash slowed down the rescuers, who were only able to intervene three hours after the accident.
The Nigerian airline’s Boeing MD-83 crashed minutes before it was scheduled to land at Murtala Muhammed International Airport. The daily Nigerian newspaper Leadership reveals that the plane had been under repair these past weeks and shouldn’t have been authorized to fly. “The Dana aircraft … is said to have narrowly escaped a crash in the last couple of weeks before yesterday’s fatal accident,” reports the newspaper.
The cause of the accident is still unknown but it seems that the two motors stopped working simultaneously. The pilot sent a distress call just before the crash to say that the engine had failed.