All 117 people on board a Nigerian airliner died when the Boeing 737 crashed and disintegrated in flames shortly after take-off from Lagos Airport, the government confirmed on Sunday.
Dismembered and burned body parts, fuselage fragments and engine parts were strewn over an area the size of a football field near the village of Lissa, about 30 km (20 miles) north of Lagos.
"The Federal Government announces with regret the unfortunate air crash of Bellview Airlines... which resulted in the loss of life of all passengers and crew on board," a government statement released late on Sunday said.
A senior police official at the scene said: "The aircraft has crashed and it is a total loss. We can't even see a whole human body."
Bellview Airlines flight 210 left Lagos at 8:45 p.m. (1945 GMT) on Saturday night on a scheduled flight to the capital Abuja and lost contact minutes later during a heavy electrical storm.
The pilot made a distress call after take-off, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the presidency said.
The plane crashed not long after, leaving a smoking 70 foot (20 meter) crater in the marshy earth, uprooted trees and blew the roofs off nearby houses.
A wig, human intestines, clothes, foam seats and a hand were visible wedged in the sodden earth.
The plane was carrying 111 passengers and six crew, the Federal Airport Authority said.
"It would be a miracle if anyone survived," one man at the crash site said.
Distraught relatives wailed and prayed at Lagos Airport as a Bellview Airlines official read out a list of passengers. The list may not be entirely accurate because tickets are often transferred between people in Nigeria, the official said.
State television said the nation would hold three days of mourning for the dead.
The route the airliner was taking is heavily traveled, with dozens of flights each day between the port of Lagos -- one of the world's biggest cities -- and Abuja in the heart of Africa's most populous nation.
Aviation analysts said the fact the aircraft was at least 20 years old may have been a factor in the crash, but asked why there was so much confusion and delay in finding the crash site.
Bellview Airlines is a privately owned Nigerian airline and is popular with expatriates. It recently began international flights to India and London.
In Seattle, Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said the company would work with the US National Transportation Safety Board if the board was asked to help with any investigation in Nigeria.
She said the 737 was the "workhorse of the world commercial jet fleet".
More than 140 people died in May 2002 when a Nigerian airliner crashed into a poor suburb in the northern city of Kano, killing people on board and on the ground. The aircraft plowed into about 10 buildings shortly after take-off.
