Why FG’ll not release Dana’s black box record —Investigation

Sympathisers who thronged the crash site of the ill-fated Dana aircraft in Iju on Friday
| credits: Stanley Ogidi

Contrary to the Federal Government’s promise to release information from the black box about the crashed Dana aircraft and the flight records of previous crashes to the public, investigation shows that the promise might not be kept.

The June 3 Dana air crash, which killed all the 153 passengers on board in Iju Ishaga, Lagos, had provoked public demand for the release of the black boxes of aircraft that crashed in the past.

But the Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of Accident Investigation Bureau, Captain Muhtar Usman, told SUNDAY PUNCH, in an interview that such demands would not be met going by the conventions of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which Nigeria had ratified.

However, he said the practice had been for the AIB to use part of the information to write its report, but would not wholly release the details as contained in the flight recorder.

He said, “There is an international convention of the ICAO preventing us from publishing the information from the black box the way it is.

“We can use the information in it to write our report, but not to publish it the way it appears. We have adopted ICAO rules.”

The implication of this is that Nigerians might not fully know the cause of the Dana flight tragedy.

Stanley Ogidi

Sympathisers who thronged the crash site of the ill-fated Dana aircraft in Iju on Friday

Since November 20, 1969 when the Nigerian Airways BAC VC 10 crash-landed and killed 87 passengers and crew on board, the country had recorded about 39 other air accidents. None of the crashes has had its black box information made public.

A flight data recorder also known as accident data recorder (popularly called the black box) is an electronic device employed to record any instructions sent to any electronic systems on an aircraft.

Though the AIB has published the report of 19 of the accidents on its website, www.aib.gov.ng, none of the reports contain specific information from the black box.

Usman said even though some countries publish the information contained in the black boxes of crashed aircraft, ICAO rules forbid members from doing so.

The AIB boss noted that such countries might have relied on some laws in their land to do so.

Despite current doubts about the safety of the country’s air space, Usman claimed that the safety recorded in the past six years was due to the recommendations AIB had made to relevant aviation authorities.

Out of the four major air crashes in the country between 2005 and 2006, only the report of the Sosoliso Airline that claimed the lives of 103 passengers and crew members on December 10, 2005 in Port Harcourt, was available on AIB’s site.

The report of the October 22, 2005 Bellview Airlines Boeing 737 airliner that went into flames on crashing in Lagos and claimed the lives of 117 people, could also not be found on the website.

Similarly, the report of the October 29, 2006 ADC Airline Boeing 737 that killed 104 passengers and crew minutes after take-off from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport was not there.

Nevertheless, Usman told our correspondent that the reports were ready and would soon be made available on the website.

He said, “We don’t normally wait until the whole report is ready. Once there is something, we make reports that are targeted at institutions to implement them.

“Our recommendations are being implemented by relevant organisations and these have ensured safety in the airways.”

The Special Assistant to the Minister of Aviation on Media, Mr. Joe Obi, told our correspondent that information found in the black box as well as the AIB reports were usually made available to the President through the Ministry of Aviation.

Obi said, “The law mandates the minister to transmit the information to the president and that is what has been happening.

“The AIB has the mandate to conduct investigations and the reports are transmitted to the president through the minister. We don’t have the reports.”

When contacted, Special Adviser to the President on Aviation, Captain Shehu Iyal, referred our correspondent to the AIB, adding that the bureau had the mandate to handle investigations and report its finding.

However, the General Secretary of Airline Operators of Nigeria, Captain Mohammed Joji, said that the public had the right to know what information was contained in the black box.

Joji said on the phone on Friday, “The public has a right to know what happened to an aircraft. Normally, they give it to the president and any person that wants to know can apply for it.”

At the behest of the Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah, the black box retrieved from the ill-fated Dana plane was sent to the United States on Monday.

She had said, “At the site of the incident, there were officials of AIB who gathered information, they cut the parts from the aircraft, looking for clues.

“Every information that they take will be taken back to the laboratory where it will be analysed to get the exact reason for the accident.

“But in addition to that, because we do not have a laboratory for that, things like the black boxes, for instance, we need to take them outside the country for proper analysis and then bring them back.

“I want to also say that among the team that worked with AIB, there are international experts, and so you are not likely to have collusion or reports that will have integrity issue; so, I want to assure you that the report you will get, will be a very authentic report.”

On former reports, the minister said, “I want to say that all the reports of past air crashes, the Sosoliso, ADC etc, are ready and when we get the proper approval to release to the public, we will do so because it serves no purpose to keep them because it is for public knowledge.”

According to her, it is very important to make the findings public as there are lessons to learn from such incidents.

The Senate while debating the crash last week had clamoured for information from the black boxes of aircraft that crashed in the past to be made available to the public.

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Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE

Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner