Rescue workers have so far pulled at least 62 bodies from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Nigeria's largest city of Lagos, an official said as searches pressed on Monday at the site of the devastation.

Two cranes arrived early on Monday to clear debris and allow rescue workers better access to the densely populated area near the airport where the Dana Air plane crashed on Sunday, with the 153 people on board presumed dead.

"Sixty-two bodies recovered so far," the rescue official said on condition of anonymity.

A few thousand onlookers gathered at the site, where a church, a two-storey residential building and a printing shop were badly damaged. The number of those killed on the ground remained unclear.

Smoke was still rising from the scene and water trucks were also brought in to douse the smouldering wreckage.

"We were lucky. We just finished our church service when this thing happened," one resident at the scene on Monday morning said.

One woman, who said that her uncle had been aboard the plane, asked rescue workers if she could have access to the site, but they refused, saying the bodies were unrecognisable.

President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning for victims of the crash and pledged an investigation as rescuers rushed to pull out survivors from the densely populated, poor neighbourhood near the airport.

The cause of the crash of the Dana Air Boeing MD83 plane was unclear, but the emergency official as well as an aviation official said the cockpit recorder had been located and handed over to police.

Officials confirmed no survivors from the plane had been found on Sunday evening following the afternoon crash, but search-and-rescue missions continued.

"We presume they are dead," Tunji Oketunbi, spokesman for the country's Accident Investigations Bureau, said when asked about the fate of those on board the flight.

He added that definitive casualty figures will only emerge ‘after the search and rescue’ is completed.

A spokesman for the airline said the flight included 147 passengers and six crew. Skies were cloudy at the time of the crash, but there had been no rain.

Chaos broke out as thousands of residents swarmed the area and authorities sought to restore calm, with rocks and wood planks being thrown back and forth. Some residents tried to help by guiding firehoses through the crowds.

"I just saw the plane – it was going down and down and down," said 23-year-old Gift Onibo.

Another resident, Tunji Dawodu, said, "I was just coming out of church around 3:30 pm when I heard a loud noise.

"I thought it was an explosion," he said. "Then there was a huge flame from the building where the plane has crashed into."

Some residents said it appeared that the plane had nose-dived into the neighbourhood while others described it as swaying back and forth before crashing.

"It was waving, waving, waving," Yusuf Babatunde, 26, said at the scene. "The pilot was struggling to control it. It crashed – it just started burning."

Wreckage including a detached wing could be seen in the neighbourhood as the inferno burned. Residents reported seeing bodies being taken out of the area as rescue workers rushed in and a helicopter landed.

"It was a Dana (airline) flight out of (the capital) Abuja to Lagos with about 153 people on board," Nigeria's head of civil aviation Harold Demuren said. "I don't believe there are any survivors."

The official with the National Emergency Management Agency said the plane had crashed onto two buildings: a church and the two-storey residential structure.

At least three people had been transported for treatment with relatively minor wounds, he said, in addition to the approximately 10 burnt bodies pulled from a badly damaged building.

The president's office said in a statement that Jonathan had directed that the Nigerian flag be flown at half-mast for the three days of national mourning.

"Meanwhile, the president has ordered the fullest possible investigation into the crash," the statement added.