Crashes in History
By Solomon Ibharuneafe
Monday, October 31, 2005
Nigeria has recorded several air disasters in the past. Here is the catalogue
Last week's air crash involving a Boeing 737-200 belonging to Bellview airlines that claimed 117 lives, brings to mind memories of past air disasters that have brought a lot of anguish and pain to the nation. In 1983 a major air disaster took place in Enugu. Involving the Nigeria Airways folker 28 aircraft killing 53 passengers on board. C.C. Onoh, former governor of old Anambra State lost his daughter while Senator Offiah Nwali's entire family was wiped out in the unfortunate accident.
Then came September 27, 1992 when 160 military officers lost their lives in the Ejigbo air disaster involving a C-130 military transport plane which crashed shortly after take-off from the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja. That accident, according to an expert, could have been avoided if the authorities had listened to the complaints of one of the pilots who flew it shortly before the accident occurred. Even though not a healthy plane, it still took 160 passengers as against its capacity of 110 without cargo. The cockpit meant for only nine persons was said to have taken 15 with some people standing. Barely one minute after the take off, Alagbosun, the pilot, sent a distress signal to the control tower that they were in trouble. All of a sudden, all the engines stopped functioning and he exclaimed "Oh my God! So I am going to die with all these people." The plane plunged into the Ejigbo canal leaving behind many widows and orphans.
There was the 1996 ADC crash at Ejirin, Ikorodu, on the outskirts of Lagos State. All the 132 passengers on board perished including Claude Akeh, a professor of Political Economy. In 1997, the ADC was involved in another crash but this time only one person died. Three others sustained injuries.
In June of the same year, a plane belonging to Aminu Dantata crashed into a Telecommunication mast at Kasa Village in Jos, Plateau State killing Muhammed Abdulahi Wase, a colonel and the military administrator of Kano State with 12 others on board. A presidential jet also crashed at Dansayi village near Kano killing Ibrahim Abacha, first son of former militant leader, late Sani Abacha, and 13 others on board.The Oriental airline BAC I-U Plane in 1994 which conveyed members of the Iwuanyanwu National Football Club back home from the Champions Cup outing in Tunis, crashed. The accident which occurred in Aguennar, Algeria, killed two players and injured several others.
Nigeria Airways Boeing 737 also crashed at the Kaduna Airport, November 12, 1995.The aircraft was said to have taken off from Yola that morning without any technical faults but crashed 27 metres to the runway in Kano airport killing nine passengers, while 55 persons were injured.
The defunct Harka Airline was not left out. Its Russian-made TU 134 aircraft crashed at the local wing of Murtala Muhammed airport killing 16 persons.
On May 4, 2002, the EAS BAC 1-11 plane crashed in Kano. The crash claimed 77 lives including the crew members with only three survivors. An unspecified number of people were also killed on the ground with no fewer than seven houses and mosques destroyed at Gwamaya residential area in Kano where the plane crashed. That crash claimed the lives of Ishaya Mark Aku, former minister of sports and Julie Useni, wife of the former minister of the federal capital territory, Jerry Useni.
The 2002 crash brought to the fore the question of air safety in Nigeria. This necessitated the government's banning of all BAC 1-11 and airplanes that are more than 22 years. But an impeccable source told Newswatch that most of the over-aged aircraft earlier banned by Kema Chikwe as minister of aviation then, are still flying.
Members of the Air Operators of Nigeria, AON, had resisted the ban and called on the government to rescind its decision. A list of serviceable and unserviceable aircraft was released by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, in 2002. This document showed that out of a total of 119 registered jets, only 26 were serviceable, and of 58 BAC 1-11 only six were operating while Boeing accounted for 81 aircraft with only 20 in operational condition.
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