LISSA (Nigeria), Oct 23: A Nigerian airliner with 117 people aboard crashed and disintegrated in flames shortly after take-off from Lagos and there was no sign of survivors, officials and the Nigerian Red Cross said on Sunday.
Dismembered and burned body parts, fuselage fragments and engine parts were strewn over an area the size of a football field near the village of Lissa, about 30km north of Lagos.
The plane disintegrated on impact with marshy earth shortly after leaving on a scheduled flight for the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Saturday night.
“I can’t confirm if there are any survivors, but there is no trace so far,” Red Cross General-Secretary Abiodun Orebiyi told newsmen by telephone after visiting the scene. “The plane was totally destroyed. It was scattered everywhere.”
A wig, human intestines, clothes, foam seats and a hand were visible wedged in the sodden earth surrounded by uprooted trees. A cheque for 948,000 naira ($7,200) from the evangelical Deeper Life church was one of personal papers found in the smouldering wreckage.
There was a smoking 70-foot crater where the main impact occurred and the roofs of nearby houses were blown off by the impact, Mr Orebiyi said.
“The aircraft has crashed and it is a total loss. We can’t even see a whole human body,” a senior Ogun state police official said at the scene.
The Boeing 737-200 was believed to be carrying a top official of the Economic Community of West African States, a Nigerian presidential aide, a US consular official, two Britons and some other Europeans, diplomats and airline officials said.
“It would be a miracle if anyone survived,” one man at the crash site said.
Bellview Airlines flight 210 left at 8:45pm (1945 GMT) and lost contact minutes later during a heavy electrical storm. It was carrying 111 passengers and six crew, the Federal Airport Authority said, updating an earlier figure of 110 passengers.
The pilot made a distress call after take-off, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the presidency said.—Reuters
