LAGOS: A small chartered passenger plane with 27 people on
board crashed shortly after take-off at Lagos airport's domestic terminal on
Thursday and at least five people were killed, authorities said.
Aviation Ministry spokesman Joe Obi said there were some survivors
from the Associated Airlines plane, which was flying from Nigeria's commercial
capital to Akure, a south-western town about 140 miles (225 km) away, with
seven crew and 20 passengers.
He did not have details of the type of aircraft.
"The plane couldn't lift properly so it just came
down," Obi said. "Some persons are being rushed to hospital. A few
dead bodies have been recovered, but there are survivors."
Yakubu Dati, coordinating general manager of Nigeria's
airports authority, told Reuters on the scene that at least five passengers had
been killed.
Several local radio stations and Channels TV reported that
the plane was carrying a family and the body of former governor of Ondo state
Olusegun Agagu to his funeral.
"There's a lot of smoke coming from the runway. There
are fire-fighters rushing to the scene," Rasaki Rhakod, who runs a car
service around the airport, told Reuters.
Air crashes are relatively common in Nigeria, which despite
having Africa's second-biggest economy has a poor safety record.
In June last year, 163 people died when a Dana Air plane
crashed into a Lagos apartment block in the country's worst airline disaster in
two decades.
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