Free | 23/6
Posted: 6/4/2012
LAGOS, Nigeria -- Emergency workers in Nigeria fought fires and searched for corpses through the night in a neighborhood that an aging American-built airliner plowed into, killing all 153 on board. Rescue officials said Monday they fear many people may have perished on the ground too.A Nigeria Red Cross report said that 48 bodies had been recovered so far, with more being dug out from the rubble.The pilots reported engine trouble before the crash. Less than two months ago, the same Boeing MD-83 had loss of engine power due to a bird strike, according to an aviation database.On a clear Sunday afternoon, the Dana Air jetliner crashed into businesses and crowded apartment buildings near Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport, the worst air disaster in Nigeria in nearly two decades.'The fear is that since it happened in a residential area, there may have been many people killed,' said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency.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. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists. Rescue workers searched for the aircraft's black box recorders where flight data is stored, said Harold Demuren, the director-general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.Demuren said the Nigerian registration number of the plane was 5NRAM. Aviation databases show the plane was exported to Nigeria in early 2009. It was first delivered in 1990 with the U.S. registration number N944AS to Alaska Airlines and it suffered two minor incidents while in the Seattle-based airline's service, according to databases of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Aviation Safety Network. On Nov. 2, 2002, the plane made an emergency diversion due to smoke and electrical smell in the cabin, and on Aug. 20, 2006, the plane was evacuated