The federal government insists a thorough investigation will be carried out
The Black Box recovered from the Dana Air Flight 0992, which crashed in Lagos on Sunday, killing all 153 people on board, will on Thursday depart Nigeria for the United States, for proper analysis.
A Black Box is a flight data recorder, an electronic device employed to record any instructions sent to any electronic systems on an aircraft. It is a device used to record specific aircraft performance parameters.
Aviation Minister Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi told journalists on Wednesday that President Goodluck Jonathan has also approved the constitution of two panels that will probe the crash.
According to her, the panels, which have six weeks to turn in their reports, will also review the health line of domestic airlines operating in Nigeria.
“These two investigative panels will be going on simultaneously,” she said. “We cannot redesign ours. We have to do it in line with what is obtainable in the aviation sector. And so immediately an accident take place in aviation, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) commences immediately to investigate.
At the site of the incident, there were people with AIB t-shirts; they were gathering information, they cut the parts from the aircraft looking for clues. Every and any information that they take will be taken back to the lab where it will be analysed to get exactly the reason for the accident. But in addition to that, because we do not have a lab, things like the black boxes for instance will be flown out of the country on Thursday for proper analysis and then it comes back.”
Speaking on the integrity of the reports that will be presented by the panels, she noted that amongst the team working with the AIB were international experts who had names to protect and so “you are not likely to have collusion or reports that will have integrity issue”.
The aviation minister also said that the economic regulatory aspect of the NCAA will be strengthened to monitor domestic airlines on a regular basis. “So when ever we see signs that indicate danger, we will be able to either shut down the airline or take precautionary actions so that we don’t get into a very bad situation,” she said.
She said that the recommendations of an ongoing committee comprising of representatives from the Ministry of Aviation, the Central Bank of Nigeria, commercial banks, and other financial agencies will be followed to the later.
She, therefore, assured Nigerians that air transportation is still the safest mode of travel. “Our airspace is very safe,” she said.
