A 25- to 30-seat passenger plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, on Friday, an airport official and witnesses said.

There was no sign of any survivors, victims or wreckage. It was unclear how many people were aboard the aircraft.

Air traffic control was trying to determine the origin of the plane, which disappeared beneath the waves, the official at Lagos international airport said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The plane went down along a busy east-west commercial West African flight path that is also used by multinational oil companies to fly workers to and from facilities in Nigeria's oil delta. No airline reported any planes missing.

Police called for divers to search the seas for survivors, but those plans collapsed because for lack of diving equipment. Fishermen offered to help but later refused when they were told they would not be paid.

A witness, security supervisor Kelvin Ikpeme, said he saw a white, yellow and blue twin-engine plane "shaking" and wobbling in the sky shortly before the crash.

"I rushed down here and saw smoke. Only the nose was still above the water," Ikpeme said.

The craft soon vanished off Lekki, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Lagos, Ikpeme and other witnesses said.

A Lagos state official, Leke Pitan, said time had run out to find survivors.

"We're no longer thinking about a rescue. Now we're thinking about a recovery operation," Pitan said.

(China Daily January 31, 2004)