BY Uduma Kalu
...Wants airline banned, officials prosecuted
LAGOS—The June 3rd Dana plane crash could have been caused by human error, former Federal Airports Authority, FAAN, Advance Ground Instructor and pilot, Captain Tito Omaghomi, has said. He also recommended that Dana airline should not fly again.
Faults report
In a presentation to top Vanguard editors yesterday at the newspaper's corporate headquarters in Lagos,Tito, accompanied by two other aviation experts, Captain Charles Aisuen and Prince M. Nwoko, also queried the Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB, report on the crashed Dana plane, saying the working details of planes did not match details in the report.
The aviation expert said from the retrieved conservation between the control tower and the pilot and the crew hid information on the condition of the plane.
The two engines of the plane, he said were not working any more at the time the pilot radioed the airport, wondering how the landing gears could be raised if the engines were dead.
Also, a retired air plane inspector, Aisuen, said it could have been caused by human error. Aisuen said that in the course of doing his job, he had grounded a pilot whose licence had expired. But the chairman of the airline got to some government officials and had the grounded pilot fly the plane.
Tito, who has an over 40 experience in the industry said it was impossible for the black box to be destroyed, as it is fire resistant. For him, this is the first time that a black box could not be decoded.
From the retrieved conversation between the pilot, the co plot and the air control, Tito said there were gaps and outright lies in the report. Instead of blaming the crash on engine failure, Tito said it was pure criminal negligence of the pilot.
The black box issue
On the black box, Tito queried where the black box was in the plane, "where did they put the black box? We want to know. If we could get readings from the voice recorder which is in the cockpit, it is a tape. We know from that accident, only the tail of that plane and the wings were saved before all got burnt.
"If they could decipher something out of the voice recorder, how come they cannot decipher anything from the flight data recorder? What is the job of the flight data recorder? It will tell you the altitude of the plane, the speed. Whether one wing was low, whether landing gear was down.
"It will tell you everything before that impact. All what civilised aeroplanes do now is that they take that black box to the manufacturers and watch the last outing of the plane The way it took off from Abuja, engines start, checks, how it took off until it crashed. Now, they say that the black box is burnt beyond recognition. Nobody should do anything with it.
"But God in his infinite mercy, they agree that from their voice transmission, the plane had landing gears down. The plane had flaps and flaps extended. You say they lost two engines... Whatever makes a pilot put down his landing gear, he is double sure that he can make the runway, not to talk of a plane that was said to be operating on one engine.
"When they put in their report that the pilot was asking the co pilot to raise the landing gear, which landing gear were they raising? With what system were they going to use to raise the landing gear when the engines were not working? Your landing gear could be raised only by hydraulic. The flaps you are asking for them to raise could only be raised by electrical means.
"Your engines were not working, your electrical systems had all failed, your hydraulic systems had failed. Why are you asking them to raise landing gear? With these statements, good lawyers can use somebody with knowledge of what I am now telling you, put them in the witness box. You will find out that it was a case of criminal negligence."
Vanguard Nigeria