- A closure on this tragedy is long overdue
It is worrisome that over four years after the crash of Dana Flight 992 that killed 153 passengers, six crew members, and 10 persons on the ground in Iju-Ishaga, Lagos State, 26 families of victims of the crash and their lawyers are still waiting for the final report of investigation of cause of the accident.
Four years and three months after the crash, a consortium of British and Nigerian lawyers hired by the families wrote to the Minister of Aviation, calling on him to authorise the release of the final report of the Nigerian Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB). The investigation had been on for four years. It included a special investigation by a Joint Committee of Senate and the House, following recovery of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) containing flight captain’s 31-minute recorded message about failure of the aircraft’s two engines before landing in Lagos. It is surprising that AIB is yet to release the final report of an investigation that had put the lives of many survivors of flight passengers on hold for four years.
This paper finds the inordinate investigation insensitive to the pain of the survivors of the victims of Nigeria’s second deadliest air crash. More worrisome is that after subjecting families of victims to several obstacle courses that included asking for their tax clearance certificates for three years and bank statements, only 30% of the compensation due to the families had been paid on the excuse that the balance of 70% could only be paid after release of the final report.
Although three years of the wait for final report of cause of the accident happened during the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, there is no excuse for further delay on this life-saving decision for 26 families that lost their loved ones and bread winners in the Dana airline crash. After four years of wait, it is high time for the families of the victims and their lawyers to cry out for help, and there is no better place to ask for help than the ministry of aviation.
Undoubtedly, families of the 2012 crash have suffered enough frustration since the loss of their loved ones: lack of welfare allowance of aged parents of victims, disruption to the education of children of victims, problems with payment of rent or mortgage by their spouses, medical bills of survivors, etc. Despite all these frustrations, families of victims have demonstrated enough patience by providing all the documentations required of them since the investigation commenced in 2013. Any further delay in releasing the final report of the AIB will aggravate the pain that survivors of the victims have been carrying for the past four years.
In addition, any further delay on the part of AIB has the disadvantage of preventing the aviation industry from learning lessons from the Dana crash that may assist in averting similar accidents in the country. Moreover, further delay can deny direly needed opportunity for a closure on this tragic event.
Remembering that the previous government returned the license of Dana three months after the accident to enable Dana go back to business, and realising that governance is a continuous process regardless of change in the party in power, The Nation calls on the Federal Government to bring a closure to the agony of parents, spouses, and children of victims of the four-year old crash
