There are no traces of any survivors at the crash site of an airliner carrying 116 people that went down shortly after taking off from the Nigerian capital Lagos last night, the Red Cross has said.
Earlier, it was reported that at least 50 people had survived the plane.
Red Cross General Secretary Abiodun Orebiyi said: "There were no traces of any survivors. The rescuers saw charred bodies,"
The airliner with 116 people on board including some senior officials crashed shortly after taking off from Lagos en route to the capital Abuja, the government said.
Bellview Airlines flight 210 took off at 8.45pm last night and lost contact with the control tower minutes later during a heavy electrical storm.
Authorities located the wreckage of the Boeing 737-200 airliner in Kishi, Oyo state, in southwestern Nigeria about 200 km north of Lagos, a police source said about 12 hours later.
"The government has been able to confirm that Bellview flight 210 may have gone down, thereby confirming our worst fears," Information Minister Frank Nweke told state radio earlier.
Emergency services launched a search and rescue mission. The plane was carrying 116 people: 110 passengers and six crew, authorities said. Initially, it was not known whether the plane had crashed, been hijacked or had made an emergency landing.
But the pilot made a distress call minutes after take-off, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the presidency said.
State radio reported that several high ranking government officials were on the plane, but did not name them. The privately owned Nigerian airline is popular with expatriates.
Western diplomats feared several of their citizens could also have been on board.
Dozens of flights run 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.
Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier told CNN by telephone from Seattle the company would work with the US National Transportation Safety Board if the board were asked to help with any investigation.
She said the 737 was the "workhorse of the world commercial jet fleet".