Nigeria plane crash toll rises

LAGOS, Tuesday

Disaster in Lagos is something people sort of expect but none of the eyewitnesses of Sunday’s air crash was prepared for the horror of watching a helpless mother throw down her two-year old baby from a burning three-storey building.

About 50 metres away, nurses and patients at Longe Private Hospital were heard screaming “Jesus! Jesus!” as a smoking aircraft zoomed down at the hospital building.

The aircraft which was struggling to maintain altitude almost crashed into the hospital but suddenly regained some thrust, only to end up crashing into several buildings three streets away.

Meanwhile, rescuers have confirmed the first deaths on the ground following the crash, raising the death toll to at least 159.

One of the eyewitnesses, a Mr Ajadi, who was watching a soccer match on TV between Nigeria and Namibia when the troubled aircraft hit his neighbourhood, recalled that most residents were at home that Sunday because of the football match.

Mr Ajadi said the baby thrown down from the burning building died a few minutes after she hit the ground.

Her mother, identified as Fausat, badly broke her legs after she escaped the fire by jumping. Another woman, whose name was not ascertained, was grabbed by security personnel as she rushed towards her burning home.

She was said to have left her newborn baby with her parents while she visited her hairdresser when the crash occurred. Neither her parents nor her baby have been located.

One witness spoke of a narrow escape for himself and two others. “Two of us were in the living room about to watch the Nigeria-Namibia match when we heard a loud bang and parts of the walls started falling,” said Colins Onyegesi, 24-year-old geology graduate, as he hauled away a refrigerator with his brother.

“I thought it was a bomb attack by (Islamist group) Boko Haram. We rushed to our room to rescue our sister, who was sleeping.”

About 3.36 pm on Sunday afternoon, a 22-year-old McDonnell Douglas (MD-83) aircraft operated by Dana airline crashed into a two-storey building in Lagos killing all the 153 passengers on board.

Among the victims of the crash were Dr Levi Ajuonuma, Group General Manager, Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation; Ehime Aikhomu, son of the late former military Vice-President Augustus Aikhomu; three military officers comprising a General, a Lieutenant-Colonel and a Major.

One of the female crew members, who died in the crash, identified as Vivian, was said to be preparing for her wedding this June to her UK-based fiancé.

Minutes after the crash, thousands of spectators thronged the crash scene but no one seemed to have a clue about rescue operations. Charred human bodies, scattered metal pieces and burnt personal items and documents littered the scene.

Eyewitnesses said the aircraft exploded as soon as it hit one of the buildings. Some spectators said they could hear some of the trapped passengers crying for help.

Mr Ajadi confirmed this saying: “They were crying ‘Help! Help’!  But we could not come any closer because of the choking smoke and huge fire.

“We all rushed to the scene after the plane crashed but we did not know what to do as the smoke and fire were too severe for anyone to brave.

“We could see somebody attempting to crawl out of the burning aircraft. I cannot say whether he was a passenger or the pilot. He did not make it”.

The ill-fated aircraft, with parts scattered all over the place, lay on the mutilated bodies of passengers, several of them burnt beyond recognition.

Rescue operations were seriously hampered because crowd control was a major challenge to security personnel.

Thousands of spectators had blocked the roads leading to the crash site, making it difficult for rescue equipment and officials to reach the scene.

The crowd jostled for vantage positions to take photos of the burning aircraft with their cell phones which they immediately sent to different social media.

Pickpockets had a field day just as the infamous Lagos street urchins called “Area Boys” later braved the smoke and fire to scramble for valuables from the aircraft and from the affected residential homes.

One man was beaten to a pulp by angry soldiers deployed to the scene after he was caught with a wallet containing 200 dollars and 8,000 naira.

A member of the search and rescue team gave vent to his frustration saying the operations were impeded because they lacked the necessary equipment to move the fuselage of the plane.

He had a tough time telling spectators that the fumes oozing out of the crashed plane posed danger to residents and onlookers. “We ought to have completely secured the crash scene but we can’t even do it, the residents have taken over,” he lamented.

Another member of the rescue team admitted that the fire trucks, facilities and the personnel deployed to the scene were grossly inadequate for the task.

He added that no meaningful search and rescue operation could be undertaken until the aircraft, whose nose was buried in the ground, was pulled out.

At one point during the operation, the crowd began to boo when a fire truck ran out of water. Unsure of what to do, policemen fired canisters of tear gas at them.

Three Navy helicopters hovered above the scene to drop rescue materials but there was little else they could do because the neighbourhood was overcrowded and poorly planned.

While most of the bodies retrieved before sunset were burnt beyond recognition, none of the 24 corpses found later in the night was burnt as such.

They were believed to be those of unlucky residents of the buildings damaged by the crash.

So far the figure of casualties on the ground has not been fully ascertained but rescue workers put non-passenger deaths at nothing less than 32.

The body of a seven-year-old girl and that of a woman identified by residents as Mama Joel were among the bodies recovered.