SADE WILLIAMS ( Businessday)
The management of Dana Air has insisted that the crashed MD- 83 aircraft was manufactured in 1990 as against insinuations that the plane was manufactured in 1983.
Oscar Wilson, the Director of Flight Operations, Dana Air, made the clarification when he appeared before the committee probing the Dana plane crash and other sundry issues in the country’s aviation industry weekend.
He said the average age of planes in the inventory of the airline is 21 years.
Wilson told members of the joint committee that the most important factor in an aircraft operation was not its age but its history of regular maintenance.
“A three months old aircraft can as well crash if not regularly maintained. The age of aircraft does not determine their safety or airworthiness,” argued Wilson, adding that the ill-fated plane had its last maintenance check in September 2011.
Jacky Hathramani, Dana’s Managing Director, also disclosed that the airline’s maintenance checks were done by a Turkey-based company called MYTECHNIC and stated that the crashed aircraft had its last C-Check in September 2011.
Wilson in turn said the crashed plane had never been grounded for any technical issue prior to the June 3 crash at Iju-Ishaga in Lagos.
Hathramani had also told the committee that the aircraft that crashed had operated earlier in the day as Flight 9J 999, departed Lagos at 08:31a.m local time with 135 passengers to Abuja and returned from Abuja to Lagos as flight 9J 998 at 10:24a.m with 141 passengers on board and later in the day operated as Flight 9J 993 from Lagos to Abuja with 141 passengers at 1251 hours.
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