US Edition A NIGERIAN airliner crashed into a densely populated suburb of the northern Nigerian city of Kano shortly after take-off yesterday, killing at least 155 people, including 50 on the ground.
The official estimate of the number of people on board the aircraft, which was headed for Lagos, the country's commercial capital, was 105.
Officials at the Murtala Mohammed hospital in Kano said that only one man, a brigadier-general in the Nigerian army, survived the crash. He is in a critical condition.
Terrified residents were seen fleeing just before the plane smashed into the ground, hitting two mosques and eight other buildings, including a school.
Many local people returned, sobbing and terrified, within minutes of the crash to search for victims and relatives.
Umar Suleman said he saw the BAC 1-11-500, operated by the private Nigerian airline EAS, "wobbling" seconds before the crash.
"I don't think anybody could have got out alive," said Bashir Mohammed, who lives near the airport. "The people inside the plane were screaming but they were trapped and the fire brigade had no water to put out the flames."
Witnesses said that the plane crashed about half a mile from the airport at around 1.45pm. Shattered pieces of the aircraft and rubble from destroyed brick and corrugated iron homes littered the neighbourhood.
Residents said that as the plane crashed, it hit a building in the district of Gwammaja. It ploughed through several others before bursting into flames.
Maikudi Ismae'il, who lives in Gwammaja and who tried to rescue passengers, said: "I was standing in front of my house when I saw the plane ascending and swaying from side to side. As I moved to get a better view, it went into a nose dive. First its wings burst into flames then it crashed into houses."
He said that he helped drag 26 bodies from the wreckage and that he saw about 50 more. Soldiers and police were on the scene, witnesses said, but were unable to help the passengers.
Distraught residents were doing most of the search themselves. Rescue workers, some with heavy machinery, helped clear the rubble and look for bodies.
Neighbourhood residents said that many people may have been caught inside the mosques, praying, when the plane hit. Kano, like the rest northern Nigeria is predominantly Islamic.
Rabiu Isa Kuamkwaso, the governor of Kano state, visited the scene, but his arrival added to the confusion as distraught residents tried to talk to him and were pushed back by police. A spokesman for the state government said: "We commiserate with the relatives and the victims, of course, but we cannot comment any further. It is matter for the aviation authorities."
EAS, which runs a regular service between Lagos and Kano, operates a fleet of four British Aerospace 1-11-500 twin-engine passenger jets, carrying up to 96 passengers plus crew.
The Nigerian airline industry was deregulated in the 1980s and more than half a dozen private carriers now criss-cross the skies of the large west African republic. Many passengers have criticised what they see as lax safety standards in the industry, and several foreign embassies and companies forbid their staff from flying with some of the firms.
Nigeria's last big air disaster was in November 1996 when a Boeing 727 operated by ADC airlines lost control on its descent into Lagos airport and crashed, killing 143 people on board.