JAMAICA NEWS, FEBRUARY 18, 2018, Dana Air – door falls off Nigerian plane!
A Nigerian airline, with a flight from Lagos to Abuja, was taxiing on the Abuja airport runway when the emergency exit door fell off shortly after landing. Now the airline is now blaming a passenger for the door becoming loose and falling off the aircraft.
The airline, Dana Air which is a Nigerian regional airline headquartered in Ikeja and based out of Lagos‘s Murtala Muhammed International Airport, has categorically denied that the mishap was caused by a mechanical fault, saying the door could not fall off without a conscious effort by a passenger to open it. Passengers, however, told recollections of hearing scary “rattling noises,” while the flight was in the air.
However, two passengers, one of whom is a doctor, told the BBC that everyone onboard the plane on the day in connection has denied tampering with the door. In a statement to the BBC, Dana Air responded;
“By design, the emergency exit door of our aircraft are plug-type backed by pressure, which ordinary cannot fall off without tampering or conscious effort to open by a crew member or passenger.
“When an aircraft is airborne, it is fully pressurised and there was no way the seat or door could have been ‘shaking’ as insinuated.”
The airline confirmed that the same aircraft later made the return flight to Lagos.
A passenger told the BBC that, “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.”
Dana Air’s brand slogan is ironically, “The smartest way to fly.”
The Airline has had its licence suspended twice in the past few years; in 2012 and again in 2013 after two deadly crashes. It later resumed flying in January 2014. A Dana Air aeroplane crashed in a busy Lagos suburb in 2012, killing all 153 people on board.
During the frightening ordeal, a passenger recalled that the airline crew immediately commanded the passengers not to take pictures or record videos of what was happening.
