ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A commercial airliner that crashed last month in Nigeria’s largest city, killing more than 150 people onboard and others on the ground, lost both engines within sight of the airport, according to a preliminary reported released Thursday.
The report released by Nigeria’s Accident Investigation Board suggests mechanical problems doomed the Dana Air MD-83 coming into Lagos from the capital, Abuja.
But finding a true cause for the crash likely will be hindered because the report says one of the aircraft’s black boxes melted in the intense fire that engulfed the plane after it slammed into a residential neighborhood about five miles north of Murtala Muhammed International Airport on June 3.
The crash killed 153 people onboard the flight and 10 others on the ground, the report said. The number of those killed on the ground when the plane crashed into the Lagos neighborhood of Iju-Ishaga remains in dispute, in part because of people wanting to claim compensation from the crash.
The airplane’s cockpit voice recorder captured 31 minutes of conversation between the two pilots, the report said. The recording begins with the pilot and first officer talking about an engine indicator light and the engine’s throttle setting, a problem that
