WE WERE FORCED TO FLY BY INDIAN OWNERS, PLANE HAD PROBLEMS WITH HYDRAULICS

We were forced to fly the faulty plane - Dana Air official

An official of Dana Airlines who called into Channels Television anonymously confirmed to the station that the ill-fated Dana plane had persistent history of faults with its hydraulics in recent times and it was not supposed to have flown. She said the plane was faulty after it left Lagos and stopped in Calabar. She alleged that the Indian owners of the airline threw caution to the wind and insisted that the plane must fly in a bid to maximise profit, thereby sending the plane over to Abuja to pick passengers, when it should have being returned to Lagos for further repair. Listen to her above...

 The Dana Air MC Donnell Douglas MD 83, which crashed in Iju-Ishaga, Lagos, on Sunday, has had a history of mechanical problems even before original owners, US-based Alaska Airlines, sold it to Dana Airlines on February 17, 2009. The Aviation Safety Network, an exclusive service of the Air Safety Foundation (ASF), in a statement on Monday, revealed that the ill-fated aircraft was acquired by Alaska Airline in November 13, 1990. Twelve years later, on November 4, 2002, the aircraft developed mechanical faults and had an emergency diversion due to smoke in the cabin area, which engineers said was because light ballast had over heated. On August 20, 2006, passengers had to be evacuated after landing at Long Beach, California, due to a chaffed wire bundle that discharged and produced smoke in the cabin area again. Subsequently, Alaska Airlines, on August 21, parked the aircraft until September 11 2008 when it carried out maintenance work on it. Five months after repairs where concluded, on February 2009, Alaska Airlines sold the aircraft, as 5N-RAM, to Dana Airlines. See, Nigeria is a dumping ground. Americans reject the plane, Indians buy it and bring it to Nigeria, playing with people's lives

The pilot declared an emergency as the plane was on final approach to Murtala Muhammed International Airport, and witnesses said it appeared the plane was having engine trouble, said Oscar Wason, Dana Air’s director of operations.

The airline did not release the pilot’s name or hometown.

The co-pilot was from India, and the flight engineer from Indonesia, Wason told CNN.

It was gathered that a team of Boeing engineers were en route to investigate the crash, Wason said.

According to Wason, ‘the airplane that crashed was 22 years old, and was purchased from Alaska Airlines. It underwent a routine maintenance checkup every 200 hours, and it had just been inspected three days earlier.’