Dana crash victims’ families seek aviation sector reform

Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah
| credits: File copy culled from Punch

Families of the victims of June 3, 2012 Dana plane crash had a meeting with the Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola, where they demanded a reform of the country’s aviation sector to avert such disaster in future.

Fashola said the families agreed that there was a need to use the traumatic experience of the crash as an opportunity to clean up the aviation sector after a two-hour meeting between them and government officials led by the governor at the Lagos House, Ikeja.

The governor added that the families also demanded that the details of what culminated in the Dana plane crash be made public.

Fashola, who briefed journalists after the meeting said, “It was agreed that authorities concerned should seize the opportunity that the Dana plane crash offered to reform the aviation sector.

“There is need to meaningfully engage actors in the sector in order to avoid future air disaster and so that the victims will not die in vain.”

The governor also said the government had issued 89 death certificates to the families, while he put the identification rate of the victims at 94 per cent.

He said, “Fresh samples were collected from five families to identify the corpses that were yet-to-be identified. In summary, we will now have four corpses that are yet to be identified.”

However, some of the relations expressed shock at the restoration of the operating licence of the airline.

One of them, Mr. Seke Somolu, challenged the Federal Ministry of Aviation to publish complete report of the investigation into the incident.

He said the licence was restored under unclear and suspicious circumstances.

Another relation, Mr. Akinola Cole, lamented the poor response of the insurance company in compensating families of all the victims involved in the plane crash.

Mr. Ahmad Damcida and Mrs. Onye Okocha also called for safe air services, insisting that issues surrounding the crash should not be swept under the carpet.