The Nigerian Medical Association wants government to limit the age of planes allowed to fly Nigeria’s air space to five years.
It said Sunday’s crash of the Dana Air Flight 0992—an MD 83plane— shortly before reaching airport runway in Lagos raised questions about flying standards and regulations in the country.
The crash killed 153 people on board and another 10 in a multi-storey building it crashed into in Iju-Ishaga, a densely populated neighbourhood.
Doctors of the Nigerian Medical Association, who administered emergency care in the aftermath of the crash, said it raised doubts about “adherence to global aviation operational standards” in Nigeria.
“The availability and quality of maintenance facilities in Nigeria, as well as the training and re-training of the technical crew remain extremely worrisome despite the avalanche of recommendations from several investigation panels over similar air crashes in the past,” NMA said in a statement Monday as rescue workers continued to sift through wreckage at the crash site.
It added: “The recent Dana airplane crash calls to question the quality and safety of the airplanes that fly the Nigerian airspace.”
The Dana crash is the second in less than 48 hours to shock Nigeria.
Hours earlier, a Nigerian cargo plane crashed into a minibus on an airport runway in Accra on Saturday, killing 10 passengers on the bus.
Faulty flight
Only a few people on board the flight have been reportedly identified—including its American pilot, an Indian co-pilot and an engineer from Indonesia, according to the airline’s owners.
But a Dana staff anonymously claimed that Flight 0992 had had a recent history of hydraulics faults after leaving Lagos and stopping over in Calabar—and wasn’t supposed to have flown, according to reports.
The staff said the flight “was not supposed to leave Lagos at all, but it left and then got to Calabar, gave fault and it was fixed and then they took it to Abuja, when they should have returned to Lagos but because they didn’t want to part with the little money they will make, they took it to Abuja, loaded full passengers, and then it couldn’t get to Lagos. ”
The staff recounted a history of recent faults for a television news programme.
“There was a case when it was on ground in Uyo for over six hours, because of delayed flight, it had a bolt. And then in Abuja it happened a few days ago, then some people went with the aircraft but they could not come back, because it had a fault there and it couldn’t leave Abuja.
“The same engineers that fixed it and then they sent crew to bring it with passengers to Lagos.”
Despite the problems, the plane’s owners “were not ready to park it,” alleged the staff, adding that Dana management did not as a procedure return faulty aircrafts but made them complete their normal routes before returning them to Lagos.
In a statement, the airline’s management—which bought the MC Donnell Douglas MD 83 in 2009 from US-based Alaska Airlines shortly before starting its service in Nigeria—denied the plane was faulty, said reports.
Preventing disaster
Aviation officials have admitted Flight 0992’s pilot issued a May Day signal some 11 nautical miles from the airport.
Victor Elias—aviation minister Stella Oduah’s technical special adviser—said the May Day was given top priority.
But Flight 0992 crashed just 4 nautical miles before landing.
NMA says billions of naira in intervention funds to reform Nigeria’s aviation sector, “most airplanes that currently fly the Nigerian airspace need a quick and thorough review if Nigeria is to avoid another national disaster.”
The statement signed by its president Dr Osahon Enabulele called on both the aviation ministry and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority to audit the sector and instigate fresh certification of airplanes and aviation equipment.
But it also said accident-and-emergency centres and units in Ogun and Lagos would remain active and its members would continue to offer necessary treatment to wounded survivors.
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