Struck by one of the most horrific airborne disasters, Nigeria plunged into a period of mourning for the victims of Sunday's plane crash, with the death toll now raised to 193.
The ill-fated Dana Air was on its way from the Nigerian capital Abuja and had crashed into a residential area in Lagos, killing all passengers onboard including 40 residents on the ground.
Two of the victims onboard the commercial airliner were Indian nationals. Co-pilot Mahendra Singh Rathore and engineer Rijo Eldos were the names of the two Indians killed, said Deccan Herald with inputs from the Press Trust of India.
Rijo Eldos, who hailed from Kerala, was to attend a company meeting in Lagos where the tragedy took place. He was said to be an employee of Reddington Nigeria, a computer service firm, the publication said.
As of now, there is no established count on the number of victims who died. "They're still busy recovering bodies. I believe some people were killed on the land as well as on the plane, though we don't yet have a precise idea of numbers," Tunji Oketunbi, spokesman for Nigeria's Accident Investigation Bureau said.
Meanwhile, rescue officials have unearthed the airline's black box which is now under police investigation. The cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained, however, it was said that the plane's pilots had informed about certain technical failures before the airline went down.
"Any claim about what caused the crash is pure speculation at the moment," Oketunbi said.
Aerospace engineering professor Ella Atkins who talked to the Christian Science Monitor speculated that the plane may have exhausted its fuel supply thereby leading to a crash.
"If this happened on approach with insufficient altitude to glide to the runway, the plane would be forced to land somewhere on the approach path, and in a densely-populated region there may not be many choices."
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan visited the crash site on Monday and pledged that the government will strive to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future. The nation has begun a three-day mourning period the following day after the crash.
