Aviation accidents do not just happen. They are caused. News in Africa Online can give up to ten instances of plane accidents caused by human error. It is understandable why a Nigerian airline blamed a passenger after one of its aircraft doors fell off shortly after landing. The flight from Lagos to Abuja was taxiing on the runway when the emergency exit door flung apart.
The airline, Dana Air, stated categorically that the mishap was not a mechanical fault, and said the door could not fall off “without a conscious effort by a passenger to open it”. However, one passenger told newsmen that nobody tampered with the door.
Another passenger from Lagos said, “The flight was noisy with vibrations from the floor panel. I noticed the emergency door latch was loose and dangling. When we landed and the plane was taxiing back to the park point, we heard a poof-like explosion, followed by a surge of breeze and noise. It was terrible. The cabin crew tried to say a passenger pulled the hatch which everyone denied. They also tried to get us to stop taking videos or pictures.”
A social media buff, who was also travelling on the flight, said on Twitter: “Did you hear the door rattling the whole flight? Was so unsettling. I just thought it was a screw loose, Didn’t think it would actually just fall off.”
In a statement, Dana Air denied there were issues with the door during the flight. “The emergency exit door of our aircraft is plug-type backed by pressure, which ordinarily cannot fall off without tampering or a conscious effort to open by a crew member or passenger,” the company said. When an aircraft is airborne, it is fully pressurized and there was no way the seat or door could have been shaking as insinuated.”
The airline further issued a statement to the effect that the aircraft had been inspected by engineers alongside a Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority team and “no issue was reported. It said the return flight was only delayed for eight minutes as we needed to demonstrate to the regulators that the safety and comfort of our guests is at the centre of our operations”.
It will be recalled that in 2012, a Dana Air flight crashed in a busy Lagos suburb killing all 153 people on board.
