The incident, according to the scanty information gathered, had 83 passengers on board when the incident occurred.

Confirming this in a statement issued by the spokesperson of the airline, Mr Kingsley Ezenwa, said there was no casualty as all passengers onboard disembarked safely.

The statement declared: “Dana Air regrets to inform the public of a runway incursion involving one of our aircraft, registration number 5N BKI, which was flying from Abuja to Lagos. today 23/04/24

“We are relieved to confirm that all 83 passengers and crew onboard the flight disembarked safely without injuries or scare as the crew handled the situation with utmost professionalism.

“We have also updated the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on the incident and the aircraft involved has been grounded by our maintenance team for further investigation.

“We wish to thank the airport authorities, our crew for their very swift response in ensuring the safe disembarkation of all passengers following the incident and our sincere apologies and appreciation to the passengers on the affected flight for their patience and understanding.”

The airline however reassured all passengers that their safety will always be “our top priority, and we are cooperating fully with the relevant authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.”

China Daily reported the death toll, which comes after a days-long search-and-rescue mission that scoured the site of the country’s deadliest plane crash in nearly three decades. Search teams recovered a “black box” from the wreckage of the Boeing 737-800 jet earlier in the week but found no survivors.

China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 had been carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members from Kunming toward Guangzhou when it nosedived into the mountains in Guangxi on Monday afternoon, according to video footage and witness accounts. The plane plunged more than 25,000 feet in less than three minutes and crashed into a mountain near Molang village in the city of Wuzhou, sparking a forest fire.

The cause of the crash has perplexed aviation authorities and experts. The weather was good, the pilots did not raise alarms and the plane did not appear to have broken apart in flight. China has one of the world’s strongest aviation safety records.

Outgoing Federal Aviation Administrator Steve Dickson called the type of Boeing plane that went down “one of the safest aircraft ever produced in commercial operation.”

Hundreds of firefighters and search-and-rescue teams were sent to the scene, local officials said. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has assembled a team of technical experts from the FAA, Boeing and engine manufacturer CFM International to join the Chinese investigation into the crash.

Search teams have retrieved one of the jet’s two black boxes, which contain recorded information from the flight that can help investigators determine the cause of a crash. But the black box had sustained serious damage, senior Chinese aviation administration official Mao Yanfeng said Wednesday.

Passengers on the plane included a young couple who had been taking their toddler daughter to get surgery in Guangzhou, executives from a Guangzhou mining company, a 22-year-old woman who had recently married and a 36-year-old woman returning to Guangzhou after going home for Lunar New Year, local media reported. More than 500 family members descended on the nearby city of Wuzhou after the crash to await word on the fates of relatives who had been onboard, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The crash is China’s deadliest since 1994, when a China Northwest Airlines flight crashed in Xian after an autopilot malfunction caused the plane to break up in midair, killing 160 people.

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