A state official says a passenger plane has crashed into a two-story building in Nigeria’s largest city of Lagos.
Femi Oke-Osanyinpolu, Lagos state emergency state manager, said Sunday that casualty numbers are unknown.
Harold Denuren, head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, confirmed the crash.
He said the Dana Air flight was heading from Lagos to Abuja in Nigeria.
Dana Air took to the skies in November 2008 and now operates 18 daily flights to four Nigeria cities: Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Uyo.
The weather in Lagos, a port city of 8 million, on Sunday was clear and sunny.
Lagos’ international airport is a major hub for West Africa and saw 2.3 million passengers pass through it in 2009, according to the most recent statistics provided by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
In August 2010, the U.S. announced it had given Nigeria the FAA’s Category 1 status, its top safety rating that allows the nation’s domestic carriers to fly directly to the U.S.
However, in a nation where the state-run electricity company is in tatters, state power and diesel generators sometimes both fail at airports, making radar screens go blank.