Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 was a chartered passenger flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Sokoto, Nigeria, on 11 July 1991, which caught fire shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport and crashed while attempting to return for an emergency landing, killing all 247 passengers and 14 crew members on board. The aircraft was a Douglas DC-8 operated by Nationair Canada for Nigeria Airways. Flight 2120 is the deadliest accident involving a DC-8 and remains the deadliest aviation disaster involving a Canadian airline.
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft involved in the accident was a 1968 Douglas DC-8-61, C-GMXQ, owned by the Canadian company Nolisair, usually operated by Nationair Canada. At the time of the accident, it was being wet-leased to Nigeria Airways, which in turn subleased it to Holdtrade Services to transport Nigerian pilgrims to and from Mecca.
William Allan, the 47-year-old captain, a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot, had logged 10,700 flight hours and 1,000 hours in type. Kent Davidge, the 36-year-old first officer, had logged 8,000 flight hours, of which 550 hours were in type, and was the pilot flying on the accident flight. Victor Fehr, the 46-year-old flight engineer, had logged 7,500 flight hours, of which 1,000 hours were in type.
Accident
The aircraft departed King Abdulaziz International Airport bound for Sadiq Abubakar III International Airport in Sokoto, but problems were reported shortly after takeoff. Unknown to the crew, the aircraft had caught fire during departure, and though the fire was not obvious, since it started in an area without fire warning systems, the effects were numerous. Pressurization failed quickly, and the crew was deluged with nonsensical warnings caused by fire-related circuit failures. In response to the pressurization failure, Allan decided to remain at , but the flight was cleared to as a result of the controller mistaking Flight 2120 for a Saudia flight that was also reporting pressurization problems. This mix-up, a result of Captain Allan mistakenly identifying as "Nationair 2120" rather than "Nigerian 2120," lasted for three minutes, but was ultimately found not to have had any effect on the outcome.
Amidst this, First Officer Davidge, who had been flying C-GMXQ out, reported that he was losing hydraulics, prompting the crew to request a return to the airport for an emergency landing. The crew only became aware of the fire when in-flight director Kay Smith rushed into the cockpit reporting "smoke in the back ... real bad". Allan informed Smith of the situation and, in reply to something not intelligible on the tape, told her "Yeah, just tell [the passengers] we'll be returning to, ah, Jeddah." Shortly afterwards, Davidge reported that he had lost ailerons, forcing Allan to take control; as Allan took over, the cockpit voice recorder failed. At this moment, the air traffic controller realized that Flight 2120 was not the Saudia flight and was in trouble, and directed them towards the runway. Allan subsequently contacted air traffic control multiple times, variably declaring an emergency, reporting flight control difficulties, and telling the controller the plane was on fire.
As there were no survivors, conditions in the cabin are not precisely known, but they can be extrapolated. Smith's report makes it clear that the passengers were exposed to heavy smoke, and burn injuries along with internally melted overwing emergency exits make it clear that flames entered the cabin. When the aircraft was about from the airport and at an altitude of , a point where the landing gear could conceivably have been lowered, it began to experience an inflight breakup and a number of bodies fell from it, indicating that the fire by that time had consumed, at least partially, the cabin floor. Unlocked doors found in the wreckage suggest that passengers attempted to open the doors in flight, something which would have been impossible due to the speed of the aircraft. As the plane came in to land, Allan communicated to the tower, "Require emergency vehicles immediately, we have a fire. We will be ground evacuating." In his last communication with the tower, he reported that the plane had ended up lining up with the center runway rather than the left, prompting the controller to authorize the use of any runway. Just short of the runway, the melting aircraft finally became uncontrollable and crashed, killing whatever portion of the 261 occupants on board—including 247 passengers—had not already suffocated or fallen out of the aircraft. Nine of the 14 crew were identified, but "no attempt was made to identify the passengers".