UK insurers Lloyds’ team visits Lagos plane crash site

Representatives of the insurers of the crashed Associated Aviation Embraer 120 aircraft, Lloyds of London, arrived in Lagos yesterday.

The plane carrying 20 passengers and crew and the body of the late former Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, for burial, crashed last Thursday near the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, barely one minute after taking off.

The advance team of the Blake Group, a United Kingdom-based international crisis management firm, is in Nigeria to work with the airline, families of those who died in the crash and aviation authorities.

They are to work with the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Accident Investigation Prevention Bureau (AIPB). The team will also work with the medical team at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), where the injured and the bodies were taken.

According to a source, the Blake Group is an advanced team of the insurers who will arrive in Lagos today for comprehensive documentation of relevant details about the crash.

The group visited the site of the crash to take samples. It made a brief stop at the headquarters of the NCAA, the AIPB and at LASUTH.

The group is also co-ordinating the DNA samples that will be sent abroad for examination.

A source hinted that the visit of the Blake team to Nigeria is to confirm the veracity of the valid insurance cover Associated Aviation has with Lloyds of London.

The source said: “The advance team of Blake Group from the United Kingdom is already in the country. They were at LASUTH to assess everything. They are coordinating the DNA samples that will be sent to the UK.

“As international crisis management firm, they are helping with the post-crisis trauma.

“The Lloyds of London will be here today to ensure that everything about insurance is intact. They will work out the terms; the procedure for payment of claims.”

The AIPB has started reading the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), of the crashed plane. This is being done at the Bureau’s newly-installed flight laboratory in Abuja, after a successful downloading of the equipment.

NCAA spokesman Yakubu Datti said yesterday that the reading of the black boxes was coming early enough when compared with efforts in the past to probe cause of air crashes.

Datti said the new management at the NCAA would not change the regulatory system overnight, but would need a little time to bring about the desired change, adding that no country is immune to air crashes.

“If you check world aviation statistics, in the last three months there have been 100 emergency landings, all over the world. South Africa alone has recorded 37 emergency landings with about 25 deaths in less than 12 months. But they involve unscheduled aircraft.

“We have since two years ago started putting things in place to make the aviation industry meet international standards. Things have improved; even the international community acknowledges the efforts government is making in improving air safety in Nigeria,” Datti said.

Defending the safety of Nigeria’s airspace, Datti said: “For example, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recently listed Nigeria as one of the 14 countries in Africa with effective safety implementation above the global average of 61 per cent, as contained in its 2013 Safety Report. The ICAO Safety Report is made from investigation conducted by the organisation’s auditors concerning levels of compliance by individual member states all over the world.”

Aviation Minister Stella Oduah, who stressed that the national carrier would be in operation before the end of year, said the Federal Government had spent about N9 billion on security at the airports.

Oduah said: “I am happy to announce to you that we are nearly done with the national carrier and I will tell you very soon when we get the final approval. I guarantee you before the end of the month.”

Thee minister said a reasonable sum of money, which is contained in the budget of the ministry, had been spent on the airports but about N648 million was spent on the General Aviation Terminal of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja.

Oduah spoke also on the suspension of Dana Air’s operations, saying it was in the interest of the public.

The Minister said the decision was taken with regards to actions and investigations carried out over the airlines in relations to policies guiding air operations in the country.

“Aviation is very highly regulated. There must be sequence of actions. You cannot wake up and speculatively say because of this and that, that reaction taken is the best reaction and so investigations have to be done.

“Sequentially, actions will be taken, depending on what the policy says, depends on the outcome of the investigation, and so the various outcome will determine what action the regulator will end up taken against the airline in question.”

She restated the significance of safety in the sector, irrespective of the operator.

“The end result is that passengers must be protected. Security and safety must be prioritised. That is the essence of the exercise, not because somebody doesn’t like Dana; not because they like Dana. We absolutely have nothing to do with subjectivity of the airline in question. And that’s why we plead always with Nigerians, to journalists; let’s do what is global practice,” Oduah added.

NCAA had earlier suspended theoperations of Dana Air on Sunday.

Lagos State Commissioner for Health Dr. Jide Idris confirmed yesterday that one of the seven survivors in the Associated Aviation crash had died. He said two were in critical condition and “unfortunately one died over the weekend while the other one in the critical state had an operation and is still in critical state.”

The death toll is now 14. He said the remaining four were in stable condition.

In Akure, the family of the late former governor Agagu insisted that it was the Ondo State government that hired the aircraft, contrary to the government’s claim.

Family spokesman, Mr. Femi Agagu, criticised the rebuttal by Commissioner for Information, Kayode Akinmade who denied that the Mimiko government hired the crashed plane.

Agagu said: ‘’Ordinarily, at this period of mourning, when the people of Ondo state grieve for the departed citizens and other compatriots who lost their lives in the ill fated journey, decorum, sincerity and solemnity should guide all utterances and actions.

‘’Again the Agagu family is constrained to react because of this obvious and unneccesary twisting and manipulation of the truth and verifiable facts about the hiring of the plane and other issues connected to the funeral arrangements of the late Dr. Olusegun Agagu.

‘’While appreciating the immense support of the state government since the demise of Dr. Olusegun Agagu, we would like to stress again that the choice and hiring of the ill-fated plane from Associated Airline was not that of the family and neither was the contracting of MIC undertakers and other subsequent arrangements for transportation of the corpse to Iju Odo.

“Indeed, the contracts for the purchase of the casket, the hiring of the hearse, arrangement for the flying of the corpse from Lagos to Akure, the planning of the lying-in-state as well as the transportation to Iju Odo were between Ondo State Government and MIC as part of the plans to give the former governor a state burial.

“Even as we commiserate with the families of those who lost their lives in the plane crash, we wish to advise advocates for government that playing politics with facts and the memories of the departed souls as well as the sensibilities of their sad families is totally unneccesary and indecent”.

Culled from The Nation