The Ministry of Aviation has said that the Federal Government would annually honour the victims of Dana Airlines crash with the inauguration of safety week.
It will be recalled that no fewer than 163 people lost their lives in the ill-fated Dana Airline crash which occurred at the Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos less than five minutes to land at the Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA) in Lagos on June 3, 2012.
The crash received wide condemnation from the public as the aircraft lost its two engines simultaneously. many aviation professionals called for proper investigation into the crash, just as some workers of the airline claimed that the aircraft was poorly maintained by the management before the crash.
Speaking on the safety week, the spokesman for aviation agencies, Mr. Yakubu Dati, said that the programme would kick off with the appraisal of the actions that had been taken by the aviation industry to improve safety in the sector and the lessons learnt by concerned authorities over the tragic crash in the last one year.
Dati explained that many safety critical equipment had been improved since the Dana Air flight crash, adding that all the government agencies in the sector had not rested on their oars, but continued to work to improve safety of flights and comfort of passengers.
He added that the government would honour the victims of the accident today with a cenotaph built for them as mark of remembrance.
On compensation for the bereaved families, Dati said that the initial 30 per cent compensation was paid to about 90 relatives of the victims, while 72 victims' families had gone to court to demand higher compensation beyond the $100,000 as recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
He, however, disclosed that the Ministry of Aviation had initiated a programme called "Victims Family Insurance Programme" designed to provide additional compensation in case of future occurrence of air accident in the country.
He said this is in addition to the plan to set up airlines operators' insurance compensation by the government.
Dati said issues of safety and security had been given priority with the implementation of the Technical and Administrative Review Committee (TARPDA) recommendations.
He said: "In the last one year, there has been improvement in the area of communication, navigation and installation of modern surveillance equipment in all the airports in the country. There have been massive training and human capacity development of Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) and other technical personnel of all the agencies in the aviation sector and just few days ago the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) flagged off the area radar control, which will further reduce the time of flight, so the Lagos to Abuja flight that used to be 55 minutes may be reduced to 45 minutes, thereby saving airlines huge amount of money in fuel cost."
National Mirror
It was a very memorable day indeed.The victims would really wish that day never came. It was really disastrous!