[TerAlelmlor]

More than 150 passengers are feared dead after their plane crashed into a two-storey building in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday, an aviation official and residents said.

Thick smoke rose from the area near the Lagos airport and flames could be seen coming from the building. Residents said the plane had been coming in low, making a loud noise, when it slammed into the residential area.

"It was a Dana (airline) flight out of (the capital) Abuja to Lagos with about 153 people on board," Nigeria's head of civil aviation Harold Demuren told AFP.

Asked if anyone likely survived the crash he said, "I don't believe there are any survivors."

Lagos State police spokesman Joseph Jaiyeoba told AFP the plane went down in the Iju neighbourhood on the mainland of the city where the bulk of the city's population lives.

Hundreds of residents swarmed the area to see what had happened.

"It was flying low with a lot of noise for about five minutes before it crashed into the residential area," one resident said. "It then burst into flames."

A spokesman for Nigerian airline Dana confirmed one of its planes was involved in the crash but could not immediately provide further details.

"I can confirm that one of our planes crashed today on the outskirts of Lagos," Tony Usidamen told AFP. "We lost communication with the aircraft. We are going to issue an official statement."

Nigeria has a spotty aviation record, though Dana has been considered to be a relatively safe domestic airline.

It began flights in 2008 and had been operating up to 27 daily flights.

Dana Air started operating in November 2008 and today is one of Nigeria's main airlines, flying a fleet of MD-83 aircraft, according to information on its website.

Its aircraft make daily flights between Abuja, Calabar, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Uyo.

Lagos, the largest city in Africa's most populous nation, is home to an estimated 15 million people. Built around a lagoon on the Atlantic coast, it is thought to be the largest city in Africa.

This latest incident came after another plane crash on Saturday night in the capital of the nearby West African nation of Ghana, which saw a cargo plane overshoot a runway and hit a passenger bus, killing at least 10 people.

The Allied Air cargo plane had departed from Lagos and was to land in Accra.

[Ettiominiw]

12 dead in Nigeria church bombing

June 3 2012 at 03:14pm
By Armstrong Batam
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REUTERS
File picture: Blood stains the ground at a church, the site of a bomb blast, in Nigeria's central city of Jos.
Yelwa, Nigeria - A suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a church in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing 12 people in the latest deadly attack on Christian worshippers, witnesses said.

Security forces at a road block nearby said the bomber forced his car through the checkpoint and drove into the church in Yelwa, on the outskirts of the city of Bauchi.

A Reuters reporter at the scene counted 12 bodies being pulled from the building.

“I had just left after the morning service and was out of the church when I heard a loud explosion. I rushed back and there were dozens of people lying in pools of blood,” said Aliku Jon, a mechanic, adding that at least six people died instantly. “Many were injured including two police officers.”

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack, although churches have been targeted this year by militant Islamist group Boko Haram - which has increasingly used suicide bombers.

“I was just in the area when I heard a huge blast. The sound was so loud, my ears are still ringing,” said Samuel Etudu, who was outside the church when the explosion happened.

Boko Haram, which says it is fighting to reinstate an ancient Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria that would impose stricter sharia law, has been blamed for hundreds of killings in bomb or gun attacks over the past two years.

It has become the number one security threat in Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer, and has linked up with other Islamist groups in the region such as al Qaeda's north African wing. However its sphere of influence is far from oil-producing facilities in the south of the country.

The sect had been less active in recent weeks, as a security crackdown in the north led to the deaths and arrests of several commanders.

Gunmen killed at least 15 people and wounded many more on April 29 in an attack on a university theatre being used by Christian worshippers in Kano, northern Nigeria's biggest city.

Such attacks on Christians seem aimed at igniting sectarian strife in a country of 160 million split about evenly between Muslims and Christians.

The U.S. Justice Department is pressing the U.S. State Department to label Boko Haram a “foreign terrorist organization”, a move the Nigerian government does not support because it thinks it would do little to resolve the conflict.

Underscoring the growing threat Islamists pose to Western interests, a German man held hostage in northern Nigeria by a group linked to al Qaeda was killed on Thursday during a raid by Nigerian forces.

Boko Haram have denied responsibility for the kidnapping, but security forces suspect it was carried out by a faction of the sect. - Reuters

[Ettiominiw]

How Nigerian aircraft crash landed in Accra
By Our Reporter 5 hours 42 minutes ago
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A cargo plane crash-landed near the airport in Ghana’s capital Accra after overshooting the runway and hit a bus on the ground, killing at least 10 people, but the crew survived, officials said.
Wreckage from the Boeing 727 Allied Air plane could be seen in an area near the airport *with the badly damaged bus. Rescue, police and fire officers flooded the scene and cordoned off the immediate area of the crash.
The plane arrived from Lagos when it attempted to land in Accra.
Ghana’s airport operator confirmed in a statement that “flight number DHV 111, cargo aircraft, operating from Lagos to Accra, has overshot the runway on landing on Saturday June 2, at 7:10 pm local time. (About 8.10pm Nigerian time)”
It added that “the crew of four people on board all survived the accident and are currently receiving treatment at the airport clinic. The aircraft collided with a minivan, resulting in 10 confirmed fatalities ...”
One witness reported seeing the plane come down and hit the bus, killing those inside.
“I closed from work, walking home in the rain, only to see the plane falling and people in the Benz bus crushed to death,” said Kofi Anor.
A senior military officer said the plane crash-landed and also *confirmed the casualty figures.
The bus was severely damaged, while the plane’s wings and tail were broken off from its body.
The bodies of those killed were taken to a morgue at a nearby military hospital where a small crowd had begun to gather trying to identify the dead, an AFP reporter said.
Some at the morgue cried out, fearing that their relatives were among those killed, but they declined to talk to reporters.
The plane crashed in an area just outside a stadium, near the airport and a military base. It did not appear to strike any houses, and scores of people gathered in the area seeking to get a view of the crash.
Ghana’s Vice President John Dramani Mahama told reporters at the airport that a thorough investigation would be carried out.
“No early conclusions should be drawn,” he said before heading toward the scene of the accident.
“We should allow investigations to arrive at the actual cause of the accident. But I can assure Ghanaians that the situation is under control.”
Someone who answered at a number listed for Allied Air in Port Harcourt identified the company as Nigerian-owned but said only officials at the Lagos office could comment on the crash.