Nigeria

After takeoff from Port Harcourt Airport, the crew was cleared to climb to FL240. At 15:47 the flight established initial contact with Lagos Approach Control, and was assigned a transponder code. At 15:54 the flight reported crossing SEPER point. After this position report, the flight appeared not to be maintaining a listening watch, as it gave no reply to two consecutive calls from Approach Control, and then after some time replied to a transmission not meant for it. At the same time a Triax Airlines Boeing 727 (Flight TIX185) had departed Lagos and was flying at FL160 towards Enugu. The Lagos controller had terminated contact with the Triax aircraft when the ADC crew requested to descend. The permission to descend was delayed to allow a corporate jet (5N-APN) to pass beneath the 727 at FL210. At 15:59 Lagos Approach Control then cleared the flight to FL160 and subsequently requested the flight to contact Lagos Radar. The flight was identified by Lagos Radar 41 miles south-east of the airport, and instructed it to fly the heading of 320° to avoid Triax flight 185, and to descend to FL50. At 16:02.50 Lagos Radar instructed the aircraft two times in succession to maintain heading 300. The captain then took over control from the copilot by stating: "I have it." At 16:03.08 the flight reported: "I have the traffic... and I continue my heading to 330 to avoid him". This was the last transmission. The records of the FDR show that flight 086 was maintaining a steady coordinated turn towards heading 330 for the first 10 seconds of the last 50 seconds of the flight. After 15 seconds, the airplane was put in bank angle of 43.2°. It maintained this configuration for 10 seconds before the bank angle increased to 68.8 degrees. This attitude was observed for 5.5 seconds before it was further increased to 83 degrees. The airplane must have suffered from high speed stall and gone into a roll with a nose down attitude. The aircraft appeared to be recovering just before it impacted the lagoon water because it succeeded in reducing the vertical acceleration from 8.44 to 2.1 G and the bank angle to 61.6°. But it did not have sufficient height to make a full recovery and crashed in the lagoon about 7,5 km west of Ejirin. The wreckage was found in the afternoon of the following day. The aircraft disintegrated on impact and all 144 occupants were killed.

The crew was completing an executive flight from Kaduna to Jos, carrying four crew members and eight passengers, among them Colonel Mohammed Wase. On approach to Jos Airport, the crew encountered limited visibility due to marginal weather conditions when the aircraft collided with a telecommunication antenna and crashed, bursting into flames. The aircraft was totally destroyed and all 12 occupants were killed.

The approach to Kano-Mallam Aminu Kano Airport was completed by night but in good weather conditions. On final, the aircraft struck the ground and crashed in a field located 7,2 km short of runway threshold. The aircraft was destroyed and all 14 occupants were killed, among them Ibrahim Abacha aged 28, son of General Sani Abacha, President of the Republic of Nigeria. It is unclear if the accident was the result of a controlled flight into terrain or if the aircraft suffered an engine problems or if it was shot down.

Nigeria Airways flight WT357 departed Yola (YOL) at 07:00 en route to Lagos (LOS). Intermediate stops were planned at Jos (JOS) and Kaduna (KAD). The Boeing 737 landed at Jos at 07:40 and departed fifty minutes later. The flight to Kaduna was uneventful. Kaduna ATC gave the aircraft an inbound clearance with no delay for a locator approach to runway 05. Though, the initial landing clearance was for runway 05, the captain requested to land on runway 23. He was reminded by the controller that the wind was from 090 magnetic, but he still insisted on using the 23 approach. At 08:42, the aircraft commenced its initial descent at 48 miles on the ILS/DME to 4,500 ft. At 08:49 UTC, it was cleared to 3,500 ft at 10 miles out and was later descended to 500 ft. The aircraft turned left from the track 310 to align with runway 23 and the aircraft was still in the turn when the threshold was sighted just 1.5 miles to the left of the aircraft. The first officer asked the captain "Can you make it to land from that position?". The observer in the jump seat also suggested going on the downwind, presumably to re-position the aircraft for landing on runway 05. There was no response at all from the captain and the approach was continued for runway 23. The left turn was very steep and it took the aircraft to the left of the runway centreline and a right correction was applied. The observer shouted "Watch the wing" as the wings could have struck the ground on the final approach. By this time, the aircraft crossed the threshold with the flying pilot still struggling to maintain directional control for runway centreline alignment. The aircraft touched down 7820 feet down the runway, leaving just 2020 ft (615.85 m) of runway length. The captain was reported to have used 1.8 and 1.6 EPR on the reversers. When a runway overrun became inevitable, the captain turned the aircraft to the left with the intention to take advantage of the last rapid exit intersection to avoid the runway end lights. At this juncture, the aircraft entered an uncontrollable skid. The right wing hit the ground, thus rupturing the fuel tanks and a huge fire erupted. The aircraft was destroyed by the fire.

Following an uneventful flight from Kaduna, the crew started the approach to Lagos-Murtala Muhammed Airport in poor weather conditions with heavy rain falls and strong winds. On short final, the wind changed to a tail component and became stronger. This caused the aircraft to land too far down the runway, about 1,000 metres past the runway threshold. On a wet runway surface, the aircraft was unable to stop within the remaining distance, overran, struck the concrete structure of a drainage ditch and came to rest 147 metres further, bursting into flames. 65 people were rescued while 15 passengers were killed. The aircraft was destroyed.

On approach to Lagos-Murtala Muhammed Airport, the crew encountered poor weather conditions with heavy rain falls and strong winds. The copilot was in command and the airplane was too high on approach so the captain took over controls and steeped the approach. Nevertheless, the aircraft was still too high over runway 19L threshold when it encountered severe downdraft. It nosed down and struck the runway surface nose gear first. It bounced, veered off runway to the left, rolled to the apron and eventually collided with a parked Fokker F27 Friendship 200MP of the Nigerian Air Force registered NAF908. Both aircraft were destroyed and one of the pilot on board the Twin Otter was killed, all eight other occupants were injured.

The aircraft was on a cargo flight from Jeddah (JED) to Kano (KAN). The total cargo uplift was 35 tonnes packed in 13 pallets and some loose bundles of merchandise that were loaded in the lower cargo hold. The departure from Jeddah was delayed for thirteen hours because of problems starting the n°4 engine. The Boeing 707 departed at 13:48 UTC. As the aircraft approached N'Djamena at FL350, about 17:00 UTC, the flight engineer noted a strange smell in the cockpit. The ground engineer and the loadmaster who were sitting in the cargo compartment area of the aircraft confirmed that the smell had persisted for a while around them. It appeared that the area around pallet number 11 was misty. The pallet was sprayed with a fire extinguisher and the smoke evacuation procedure was carried out. This stopped the fumes temporarily. The aircraft was now halfway between N'Djamena and Kano with about 40 minutes flight time to go. At 18:00 the flight was cleared to descend. Then the Master Warning sounded, followed one minute later by a Fire Warning. Smoke entered the cabin. A descent was initiated with a descent rate close to 3,000 feet per minute. Later the pitch trims became ineffective before the aircraft crashed into marshland. Tire ground marks at the scene of the accident indicated that the aircraft must have descended very slowly into the elephant grass and may have somersaulted on contact with the water, then exploded and disintegrated along the wreckage trail. Both loadmasters were killed as well as one crew member. Both other occupants were injured.

While descending to Abuja-Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, the crew encountered poor weather conditions with low clouds, heavy rain falls and moderate to severe turbulences. As the ILS was out of calibration, the crew decided to perform a VOR/DME approach but following a misunderstanding of the VOR location, the crew started the final approach prematurely. Too low, the aircraft struck the slope of a mountain located 12,2 km short of runway 22. Two people survived while three others were killed.

The descent to Kano-Mallam Aminu Kano Airport was completed by night and marginal weather conditions due to a sand storm. On short final, the aircraft was too low, struck the ground and crashed near military barracks located 3,2 km short of runway 06 threshold. All four occupants were rescued while the aircraft was destroyed by a post crash fire. At the time of the accident, the runway 06 ILS and DME systems were inoperative.

Just after liftoff, while in initial climb, two engines lost power simultaneously then failed. The crew elected to find a suitable area for an emergency landing when a third engine failed. The aircraft stalled, entered a nose down attitude and crashed in a swampy area near the airport. All 159 occupants were killed, among them military personnels from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Civilians were also among the passengers.