LAGOS, Nigeria — Landing in Nigeria's largest city, one of the first thing visitors see as they peer out of their airplane's windows is the moss-covered metal carcasses of what used to fly in Africa's most populous nation.
Workers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos call it "the graveyard," an overgrown field filled with about a dozen cargo and passenger airplanes long since abandoned and left to rot by insolvent airlines. At least 65 abandoned airplanes, ranging from small commuter jets to one massive Boeing 747, sit at airfields across the country and serve as a haunting reminder of Nigeria's chaotic and disaster-filled aviation history.
