Passenger plane crashes near Nigeria airport, witness tells Reuters

Henrie Eduozor

Bystanders at the scene of a plane crash in Lagos on Thursday.

By Carlo Dellaverson, Staff Writer, NBC News

A passenger plane crashed near an airport in Nigeria's largest city on Thursday, a witness told Reuters.

Photos posted to Twitter showed rescue workers surrounding the aircraft's fuselage and gray smoke rising.

"There's a lot of smoke coming from the runway, but we can't get access to it," witness Rasaki Rhakod told Reuters from Lagos. "There are firefighters rushing to the scene."

The crash occurred near a domestic terminal, according to Reuters.

Henrie Eduozor told NBC News he was on his way to the airport when he saw smoke rising from a nearby field. People were running toward the scene screaming “There’s been a crash!” he said.

Eduozor said he saw three bodies being removed from the wreckage. Officials at the scene told him they had recovered 23 bodies. The fuselage was so badly mangled that it was impossible to tell the name or logo of the airline, Eduozor said.

Murtala Muhammed International Airport was the scene of a June 2012 crash that killed 163 people.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

This story was originally published on Thu Oct 3, 2013 5:47 AM EDT