On June 3, 2012, Lagos was shaken by tragedy when a Dana Air plane crashed into a two-storey building in the Iju-Ishaga area, just minutes before landing. The aircraft carried 153 people, all of whom perished. Homes were destroyed, lives were lost, and the community was thrown into shock.
Amid the devastation, a few people survived by miracle and chance.
Four occupants of the ground floor of the building were watching a football match between Nigeria and Namibia when the crash occurred. Onyegesi Collins, a geology graduate from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, recounted:
“What we heard was a big bang through the front door of our house. The bang came with a red flame. In the confusion, we ran to the back door, but it was locked. We returned through the front door and passed directly under a part of the aircraft that plunged into our building before it went up in flames. Those in the apartments above ours could not make it. Many of them died.”
Collins and his flatmates survived, though everything they owned was destroyed.
Another resident, Odika Isaiah Ifeanyi, had just left his house for a visit. He said:
“When I was going out, I met one of our neighbors who later died in the flames. I didn’t even know it was a plane crash until I got back. If not for God, who knows where I would have been. If I were inside the room, I wouldn’t have survived.”
He had just started working with Flour Mills of Nigeria and had been contemplating moving closer to work before the incident occurred. The crash destroyed not only his belongings but also documents, phones, and personal property.
Others in the community narrowly escaped because they had stepped outside or were elsewhere at the time of the crash. Many credited their survival to divine mercy. Residents described the day as a near-miraculous escape, a stark reminder of how fragile life can be in the face of sudden disaster.
The Dana Air crash remains one of Nigeria’s most heartbreaking aviation disasters, claiming all passengers and crew aboard the plane. Yet the survivors on the ground, like Collins and Ifeanyi, serve as living reminders of grace, courage, and the thin line between life and death in moments of catastrophe.