THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DANA AIR CRASH
WITH 24 hours two air lines operating in Nigeria took lives. The first was in Ghana when a Nigerian cargo airline Allied Air crashed into a minibus at Ghana’s Accra airport after overshooting the runway on landing and killing at least 10 people.
Hours later that fatal crash of Dana Air on Sunday afternoon which not only killed everyone on board but also those in their houses and like the normal pattern that arises from any tragic event in Nigerian, a national sense of disbelief and grief followed by official visits to the scene of the tragedy, declaration of national mourning, and then an impeccable commissioning of an investigative penal into the cause of the tragedy, this tragedy protocol has been fully observed.
Planes do not just fall from the sky something went wrong but because the cause of the crash cannot be established right away, people are left with speculations and the politicians are at it again. The VIP movement involving the first Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, allegedly caused the Dana MD-83 crash. Apparently, because the air space was closed for the First Lady, the plane had nowhere to land and then crashed into buildings. The office of the First Lady rebuffed stating:
“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.
“It is therefore surprising that some mischievous persons will see this moment of National mourning as an opportunity to blackmail and impugn the First Lady’s integrity.
“This is the time for all Nigerians to be sober and pray for the repose of the souls of the victims and not a time to subordinate the interests of our nation to narrow self-serving interests,” the statement reads.
Trying to avoid any allocation of blame on their part till the cause of the crash is established Dana Air have cited Bird strike as a possible cause of the crash. According to Dana Air’s Director Of flight, Captain Oscar Wason, speaking on Sliver Bird Television in Lagos, he explained “I don’t know what could have been responsible for the crash, but this morning we found remnants of birds in one of the engines,” he added. “We have bird strikes and it might have been that a mass of birds went through the engine and caused it to lose power”
Since 1975 bird strikes have been the cause of a significant number of Plane crashes and it usually occur at lower altitudes, especially during take-off or landing. This is because the aircraft shares almost the same air space as that of the birds.
The bird that strikes the aircraft might damage the nose, the trailing edge of aircraft’s wing flap or the engine. The size of the bird also matters in determining the extent of destruction it can cause. While a tiny bird like a sparrow would not be able to cause any damage that would impede the functionality of an aircraft, a flock of geese might cause unrecoverable damage, eventually leading to a plane crash.
The fan blades of the plane engine move at a very high speed to generate sufficient power required by the aircraft to fly. If the bird hits the engine, it may damage or break off one or several fan blades leading to significant engine failure and no matter how skilled the pilot is, nothing can be done to avoid the imminent disaster. . If Oscar is right, this means Dana Air was not negligent and as such cannot be held liable for the accident. However, due to the fact that the airport authorities are aware that birds are congregating around the airport, there should have been bird management initiatives to reduce the number of birds in the airport area by making the environment unattractive for birds, scaring the birds, or as a last resort, reducing the bird population.
Though Bird strike is a plausible explanation, the quality of Dana Air plane is fuelling yet another speculation that the crash occurred because the plane was faulty a theory Dana Air is vehemently denying. However, the plane’s history does not look good. The Twin-Engined McDonnell Douglas MD-83 was purchased new by Alaska Airlines in 1990. Alaska Air then sold the Aircraft to North Shore Aircraft LLC in May 2007 in order to fly a fuel-efficient Boeing 737s but leased it back for about a year. In August 2008, the aircraft was retired from the Alaska fleet and returned to the owner.
sunday tribune http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/sunday-zest/7542-dana-air-crash-bird-strike-or-poor-quality-aircraft-
WITH 24 hours two air lines operating in Nigeria took lives. The first was in Ghana when a Nigerian cargo airline Allied Air crashed into a minibus at Ghana’s Accra airport after overshooting the runway on landing and killing at least 10 people.
Hours later that fatal crash of Dana Air on Sunday afternoon which not only killed everyone on board but also those in their houses and like the normal pattern that arises from any tragic event in Nigerian, a national sense of disbelief and grief followed by official visits to the scene of the tragedy, declaration of national mourning, and then an impeccable commissioning of an investigative penal into the cause of the tragedy, this tragedy protocol has been fully observed.
Planes do not just fall from the sky something went wrong but because the cause of the crash cannot be established right away, people are left with speculations and the politicians are at it again. The VIP movement involving the first Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, allegedly caused the Dana MD-83 crash. Apparently, because the air space was closed for the First Lady, the plane had nowhere to land and then crashed into buildings. The office of the First Lady rebuffed stating:
“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.
“It is therefore surprising that some mischievous persons will see this moment of National mourning as an opportunity to blackmail and impugn the First Lady’s integrity.
“This is the time for all Nigerians to be sober and pray for the repose of the souls of the victims and not a time to subordinate the interests of our nation to narrow self-serving interests,” the statement reads.
Trying to avoid any allocation of blame on their part till the cause of the crash is established Dana Air have cited Bird strike as a possible cause of the crash. According to Dana Air’s Director Of flight, Captain Oscar Wason, speaking on Sliver Bird Television in Lagos, he explained “I don’t know what could have been responsible for the crash, but this morning we found remnants of birds in one of the engines,” he added. “We have bird strikes and it might have been that a mass of birds went through the engine and caused it to lose power”
Since 1975 bird strikes have been the cause of a significant number of Plane crashes and it usually occur at lower altitudes, especially during take-off or landing. This is because the aircraft shares almost the same air space as that of the birds.
The bird that strikes the aircraft might damage the nose, the trailing edge of aircraft’s wing flap or the engine. The size of the bird also matters in determining the extent of destruction it can cause. While a tiny bird like a sparrow would not be able to cause any damage that would impede the functionality of an aircraft, a flock of geese might cause unrecoverable damage, eventually leading to a plane crash.
The fan blades of the plane engine move at a very high speed to generate sufficient power required by the aircraft to fly. If the bird hits the engine, it may damage or break off one or several fan blades leading to significant engine failure and no matter how skilled the pilot is, nothing can be done to avoid the imminent disaster. . If Oscar is right, this means Dana Air was not negligent and as such cannot be held liable for the accident. However, due to the fact that the airport authorities are aware that birds are congregating around the airport, there should have been bird management initiatives to reduce the number of birds in the airport area by making the environment unattractive for birds, scaring the birds, or as a last resort, reducing the bird population.
Though Bird strike is a plausible explanation, the quality of Dana Air plane is fuelling yet another speculation that the crash occurred because the plane was faulty a theory Dana Air is vehemently denying. However, the plane’s history does not look good. The Twin-Engined McDonnell Douglas MD-83 was purchased new by Alaska Airlines in 1990. Alaska Air then sold the Aircraft to North Shore Aircraft LLC in May 2007 in order to fly a fuel-efficient Boeing 737s but leased it back for about a year. In August 2008, the aircraft was retired from the Alaska fleet and returned to the owner.
sunday tribune http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/sunday-zest/7542-dana-air-crash-bird-strike-or-poor-quality-aircraft-
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