A tragic air disaster was, on Sunday, averted, when a Dana aircraft scheduled to fly from Abuja to Lagos by 1:00pm developed technical problems mid-air.
The aircraft had to return to the Abuja airport where it took off after the pilot announced to passengers about, an hour into the flight, that there was an indicator that one of the doors was not properly closed, an eyewitness on board stated.
Most passengers, after the aircraft landed, disembarked angrily, as they noted that the airline officials had failed to communicate properly with them.
While the airline officials and one of the pilots said their engineers were fixing the problems some of the passengers said they could not continue the journey on the same plane.
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The flight, which had initially been scheduled for 1:00pm, had been delayed for over 1 hour according to officials, due to operational reasons before boarding passengers at about 2:00 pm and then landed back in Abuja at past 3:00 pm.
On June 3, 2012, Dana Air Flight 992, a scheduled domestic commercial passenger flight from Abuja to Lagos, crashed into buildings in Lagos while attempting an emergency landing, killing all 153 people on board and six on the ground.
The subsequent investigation concluded that both engines of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft had suffered loss of power, and that the associated procedures had not been followed by the crew.
Flight 992 was carrying 147 passengers, including 15 foreigners from 9 countries. The foreigners, confirmed by the Nigerian Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), were six Chinese nationals, three Americans, two Indians, and one each from Indonesia, Lebanon, Germany, France, Canada, and Benin.
Nigerian press stated that a newly married couple was among the victims while several senior military officials were on the flight, including three army generals.
