Dana Air Mishap: The Twist by Don Abiodun Odedeyi

While Nigerians are still mourning the death of more than 150 souls that perished in the Dana mishap, search for why is brewing brouhaha even in high places.

We bloggers woke up to the gist that Patience Jonathan, who was in Lagos on Saturday for a public function may have been the reason for the incident. The gist had it that dear First Lady was billed to go back to Abuja on Sunday and in accordance with the procedure for 'VIP', the airport was closed for some time. This, the gist alleged, caused a delay and subsequent crash of the inbound Dana Air.

However, Ayo Osinlu, Special Assistant to the President, Office of the First Lady denied the allegation.

In a communique made available to newsmen, Mr. Osinlu said "Our attention has been drawn to the orchestrated plan to politicize the Sunday Dana Air crash in Lagos in which many people lost their lives, through rumours about the possible cause of the accident citing VIP movement involving the wife of the President.

We consider it callous, inhuman and devilish for anyone to have thought of wrapping such national calamity in political garb by insinuating that the plane crashed because the airspace was closed for the First Lady’s movement in Lagos.

For the avoidance of doubt, the First Lady arrived Lagos at about 2pm on Saturday, 2nd June, 2012 for a private engagement and was billed to leave for Abuja on Monday, 4th June, 2012.
In compliance with her itinerary, the First Lady arrived Lagos on Saturday. She was at a public event on Sunday when the accident occurred and promptly abandoned the ceremony as a mark of respect for the victims and retired to the State House, Marina. She left Lagos at exactly 13.15hrs on Monday, 4th June, 2012, according to schedule."

He alleged, in the communique released on June 5, 2012, that the news making rounds is the handwork of mischievous persons who want to use the atmosphere to blackmail the president.

While there has been no media outcry on the involvement of the First Lady except on social media which has been on low key (I also got to know about this as early as 6:20am Tuesday but hold my breath while I snoop for more info), presidency outburst leave more to suspect than understand.

It is however not clear if the black box will corroborate earlier claim that the aircraft was delayed for some minutes. 

While the hole was still being investigated, Dana Air management, on Tuesday commented extensively on the crash of its MD 83 jet in Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos, that killed all 153 people on board and some people on ground.

The Director of Operation of the airline, Capt Oscar Wason, in a press briefing said the airplane was 22 years old, acquired from Alaska Airlines in the USA four years ago, via a third party.

According to him, the aircraft was in perfect airworthiness condition before it crashed, stressing that it was not the same airplane that suffered hydraulic failure few weeks ago as being speculated in many quarters.

“The one that had hydraulic problem was 5N-SRI while the one that crashed was 5N-RAM. I personally flew the crashed one on Saturday to Ibadan for operational checks and it was fine. It later flew the routes it was to fly. On Sunday morning it departed Lagos by 7.47am as flight 998 to Abuja(1) and came back to Lagos (2) as flight 997. It later did another flight to Abuja (3) as flight 993 and crashed on landing in Lagos (4) as flight 992,” he stated.
 
>NOTE: The plane flew four times on Sunday.

Investigation, however, contradict Dana claims. Customers recount horror ordeals in the hands of the airline management as the normal turbulence is a nightmare with Dana Air.

Investigation also revealed that the plane was phased out by Alaska Air at the time of Dana purchase. The Boeing MD 83 aircraft was indeed phased out four years ago by the Alaska Airline.