Crash: Dana’s Free Seating Policy May Impair Investigation

By Chinedu Eze (Thisday)

Dana Air’s  policy of not allocating seats to passengers, may have obstructed an aspect of the investigation into what caused the June 3, 2012 crash, which killed 153 persons on board and 10 people on the ground. This is because the investigators will not be able to recast the seating position of the demised passengers in the aircraft.
It is believed that such information is important because it might help to expose the cause of the crash as seat allocation also determines the balancing of aircraft in the air.
Inside aviation agency source disclosed to THISDAY that either Dana did not have the seat allocation system or it was lazy to use it and  the airline developed a policy of not allocating seats to passengers.
The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) was said to have complained about this policy to Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) but action was not  taken before the crash.
“We reported the habit of not allocating seats to passengers and this had gone on for a long time. Now, the clues that would have been provided by the sitting arrangements are lost so the investigators cannot now create a dummy of how the passengers were sitting before the crash. That aspect is lost and I think it is important,” an industry source told THISDAY.
But a source from the airline acknowledged that for some time the airline has a policy of free seating but before the accident happened it had resorted to designated seating- that is allocating seats to passengers.
On why the airline was most times  not allocating seats to passengers, the source said: “We wanted the process of boarding to be very fast. Yes, we did free seating. Other airlines do it all over the world. But for some reason before the crash the commercial department said that passengers could be at designated seats. That was being done at the point of check in; before the crash.”
Industry source said that after this accident the regulatory body might make seat allocation compulsory, remarking that this was not supposed to take time because there is equipment that makes it easy.
The crash has prompted other airlines to examine their aircraft and have taken their aircraft for checks overseas even before they were due so as to ensure that the machines operate safely.
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/crash-dana-s-free-seating-policy-may-impair-investigation