Breaking news--Plane crash near Lagos
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Breaking news--Plane crash near Lagos
LAGOS (AP)--A 25- to 30-seat passenger plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, on Friday, an airport official said.
Air traffic control was trying to determine the origin of the aircraft, which disappeared below the waves. It had initially been reported "mistakenly" as a helicopter, but was now believed to be a plane, an official at Lagos international airport said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The craft went down along a busy east-west commercial West African flight path that is also used by multinational oil companies to fly workers to and from facilities in Nigeria's oil delta.
It was unclear how many people were on board.
A witness, private security supervisor Kelvin Ikpeme, said he saw a white, yellow and blue twin-engine plane "shaking" and wobbling in the sky shortly before the crash.
"I rushed down here and saw smoke. Only the nose was still above the water," Ikpeme said.
The craft soon vanished off Lekki, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Lagos, Ikpeme and other witnesses said.
Police called for divers to search the seas for survivors, a police official said.
Air traffic control was trying to determine the origin of the aircraft, which disappeared below the waves. It had initially been reported "mistakenly" as a helicopter, but was now believed to be a plane, an official at Lagos international airport said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The craft went down along a busy east-west commercial West African flight path that is also used by multinational oil companies to fly workers to and from facilities in Nigeria's oil delta.
It was unclear how many people were on board.
A witness, private security supervisor Kelvin Ikpeme, said he saw a white, yellow and blue twin-engine plane "shaking" and wobbling in the sky shortly before the crash.
"I rushed down here and saw smoke. Only the nose was still above the water," Ikpeme said.
The craft soon vanished off Lekki, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Lagos, Ikpeme and other witnesses said.
Police called for divers to search the seas for survivors, a police official said.