However, it is opined that the lives lost to air crashes can be minimised if every stakeholder in the industry takes up his role without cutting corners and do what is right and appropriate.
For instance, all airlines operating in the Nigerian airspace should be ready to employ capable hands and purchase new modern aircrafts instead of second-hand ones that are mere caskets for great beyond. The regulatory authorities should also ensure that adequate measures are taken to ensure that the right things are done to prevent future occurrences of crashes that are avoidable and preventable.
Perhaps, if every stakeholder does what is expected of him in the industry, Nigerians would be spared the agony of incessant plane crashes that have dotted the aviation landscape before recent times.
It is disheartening that after six o clock in the evening, scarcely could any plane fly out or into any of the 22 Nigerian airports due to lwack of appropriate and adequate lighting of the runways, which many experts have agreed was responsible for the Sosoliso crash in Port Harcourt in 2005. 10 years after that unfortunate incident, the Nigerian aviation industry seems to have learnt no lesson at all.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NIMET, also has not been living to expectation, as it has not been able to adequately provide accurate weather forecasts, due to inadequate qualified meteorologists on its pay roll, thus contributing immensely to air crashes across the country.
It was this same problem that contributed immensely to the December 10, 2005 Sosoliso Airline Flight 1145 crash in Port Harcourt.
But it is not all gloom about the Sosoliso crash. One of the survivors, Kechi Okwuchi, now 25 years old, graduated from the University of Thomas, Texas, in the United States of America earlier in the year, with a first class.
Also, Andy and Ify Ilabor, parents of three of the crash victims, who were students of Loyola Jusuit College, Abuja, Chuka, Nkem, and Busonma, started a foundation they called the Ilabor Angels, with the sole aim of assisting orphans and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS, victims. The Loyola jesuit College also dedicated a Memorial Hall in memory of its dead students who perished in the Sosoliso crash.
On June 4 1956 a British Overseas Airways Corporation, BOAC, four-engined Canadair C-4 Argonaut airliner register number G-ALHE crashed into a a tree on departure from Kano Airport, three of the seven crew members and 29 of the 38 passengers were killed, and two crew and two passengers sustained serious injuries.
On November 20, 1969, Nigeria Airways BAC VC 10 crashed on landing, killing 87 on board and on January 22 1975, Royal Jordanian Airlines flight 707, carrying 171 Nigerian Muslims returning from Mecca and 5 crew men crashed in Kano, killing all on board.
On March 1, 1978, Nigeria Airways F28-1000 crashed in Kano, killing 16 people; while on November 28, 1983, Nigeria Airways F28-1000 crashed near Enugu, killing 53 on board. This was followed with a December, 1988, incident, when Skypower Brandeironte aircraft overshot Ilorin Airport’s runway, killing all passengers onboard.
A British Helicopter crashed in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, killing all nine people on board on February 24, 1990; while a Cessna Citation 550 belonging to Ashaka Cement, Gombe, crashed, killing all on board on May 21, 1991. On June 26, 1991, an Okada Air Bac-11 crashed in Sokoto, killing three persons and on September 26, 1992, Nigerian Air Force AC-130 plane crashed minutes after take-off from Lagos, killing all 200 on board.
On June 24, 1995, Harka Air Services Tupolev 34 crashed on landing in Lagos, killing 16 people and on November 13, 1995, Nigeria Airways Boeing 737-2F9 crashed on landing in Kaduna, killing nine people. The next air crash occurred on January 17, 1996, when Ibrahim Abacha, first son of late maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha, was killed, with a group known as United Front for Nigeria’s Liberation, UFNL, claimed responsibility for the crash.
A Nigerian Aviation Development Corporation, ADC, Airline Boeing 727-231 flying from Port Harcourt to Lagos with 142 passengers and 9 crew members crashed on landing, plunging into the lagoon with all onboard killed, on November 7, 1996. On January 31, 1997, Sky Power Express Airways Embraer 110PIA crashed on landing in Yola, killing five people while on September 12, 1997, NAF Dornier 228-212 ran into a ditch during take-off, in Nguru, Borno State. None of the 10 occupants died.
On January 5, 2000, SkyPower Express Airways Bandeirante 110P1A crashed on landing in Abuja, killing 17 people and on October 26, 2000, another Dornier Aircraft plunged into a thick bush near the Niger Delta, with six occupants injured.
Two years later, on March 14, 2002, a helicopter belonging to the Joint Task Force, JTF, crashed in Kabong, Jos, killing all on-board, among them four senior police officers and barely two months later, on May 4, 2002, EAS Airlines’ BAC 1-11-500 with 105 people on board crashed in a densely populated suburb of Kano, killing 76 on board and 72 on the ground, bringing total casualties to 148.
On November 30, 2003, a Cargo aircraft belonging to Hydro Cargo, Brussels, Belgium, crash-landed and on March 6, 2004, an Aenail spray aircraft with registration number 5NBEF, belonging to Berfieex Nigeria Ltd, crashed at the Bauchi Airport.
A little over one year after, on July 26, 2004, Pan African Airlines’ helicopter crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in Escravos, Delta State, killing four persons onboard.
December 29, 2004, witnessed the belly-landing of a Boeing 727 belonging to Chanchangi Airlines at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, MMA. Same day, a Kenya Airlines aircraft crashed-landed at the MMA due to gear fault. Barely 30 days after, on January 28, 2005, a Nigeria Air Force fighter plane crashed into a farmland in Yar Kanya, Kano State.
Between February 25 and December 10, 2005, eight crashes occurred in Nigeria, including ADC’s B73 aircraft which had its tyre burnt while landing at Yola Airport; Bellview’s Boeing 737 which had one of its engines caught fire; Chachangi Airlines’ Boeing 727-200 which overshot the runway at MMA while yet another overshot the runway at the airport in Jos a day earlier.
Others were Harka Air Russian aircraft, which crash-landed at the MMA, killing all the people on board; Air France A330 plane which crashed into a herd of cattle at Port Harcourt airport, sustaining serious damage and killing many of the cows; Lufthansa aircraft crash-landed at Lagos airport and was badly damaged, but no life was lost; Bellview Airline’s twin Engine Boeing 737, which crashed in Lisa Village, Ogun State, killing all the 117 passengers on board and the ill-fated Sosoliso Airlines’ Flight 1145.
On September 17, 2006, an 18-seater Dornier 228 Air Force transport plane, carrying 15 senior army officers and three crew members crashed in Benue State, leaving only three survivors while ADC Airline Boeing 737 with 104 on board crashed minutes after take-off from Abuja’s airport, on October 29, 2006, killing 98 people.
Less than a month later, on November 10, 2006, a six-seater helicopter belonging to Odengene Air Shuttle (OAS) crashed in Delta State, killing two people and on August 2, 2007, Bristow-owned helicopter crashed inside ExxonMobil facility in Port Harcourt.
It was the turn of a Beechcraft 1900D plane marked 5N-JAH, belonging to Wing Aviation to crash in Cross River State, on March 15, 2008. The wreckage was not found until six months after, with all four crew members dead.
On March 8, 2011, an HS-125 chartered aircraft crashed in Bauchi, with no casualty and on March 14, 2012, a helicopter conveying newly promoted Deputy Inspector General of Police, Haruna John, with three other senior police officers crashed in Jos.
The nation was to be thrown into national mourning again on Sunday, June 3, 2012, when a Dana Airlines Flight 9J 992 carrying 153 passengers on board crashed into Iju-Ishaga, a densely populated residential area of Lagos, killing all passengers on board and four months after, precisely October 25, former governor of Taraba State, Danbaba Suntai and five of his aides narrowly escaped death when a Cessna 208 aircraft marked 5N-BMJ and piloted by Suntai, lost contact with the Yola Control Tower, 38 miles to landing, after leaving Jalingo, the Taraba State capital and crashed into a hill in Adamawa.
December 15, 2012, witnessed another crash when four persons, including Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State and former National Security Adviser to the President, General Owoeye Azazi were killed in a helicopter crash in the forest of Okoroba community in Nembe Local Government of Bayelsa State.
And on October 3, 2013, an Associated Airlines aircraft, conveying the corpse of former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Agagu, crashed, minutes after take off at the local wing of the Lagos Airport.
Source : AuthorityNg
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