Last week, a Dana Air plane skidded off the Murtala Mohammed International Airport runway, in Lagos State. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, however, the incident led to suspension of the airline”s operating licence.
The airline has a history of plane mishaps and suspensions, which leaves aviation watchers concerned about Dana Air’s operations in Nigeria.
In the last 14 years, Dana Air has had more troubles than any other airline still in operation in Nigeria. The airline has recorded 11 incidents and one tragic crash since its establishment in 2008.
The first was on the 10th of May, 2012, when the airline’s McDonnell Douglas MD-83 with registration number 1 5N-SRI from Uyo to Lagos with 86 passengers, reported a hydraulic system failure.
Three weeks later came the tragic crash into a two-storey building at Iju Railway, Ishaga, a suburb of Lagos. All 153 passengers and crew on board died in the ill-fated Dana Air MD-83 operating as Flight 0992. The accidents forced the regulatory body, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA to ground all flights by Dana Air.
The airline was suspended on June 3, 2012. But The suspension was lifted on June 6, 2012, four days after the plane crashed.
On its return to the skies, one of the airline’s MD83 aircrafts had an engine failure mid-flight enroute Lagos from Port Harcourt, forcing an air return to Port Harcourt on October 6, 2013.
On November 17th 2015 another incident occurred on Dana flight 9J-334 from Uyo to Lagos when a fuel leak forced a diversion to Port Harcourt where the aircraft landed safely. In April, 2017, there was yet another air incident with a Dana aircraft from Lagos to Port Harcourt where an engine ingested a bird prompting the crew to shut the affected engine down and return to Lagos for safe landing.
Also, on February 7, 2018, a Dana Air flight landed in Abuja and was taxiing on the runway when one of the emergency exit doors fell off. No casualties were recorded but passengers later reported rattling sounds on the door throughout the flight.
Within the same year, a Dana Air MD-83 veered off the runway of the Port Harcourt International Airport during a night landing leaving damages on the aircraft but without any human casualty.
Yet another incident was reported on September 30, 2019, when a Dana flight 9J-332 taxing along the runway of the Sam Mbakwe Airport in Owerri suddenly became disabled. Three years later, on July 19, 2022, the airline’s Boeing 737-300 from Enugu to Abuja with over 100 passengers on board declared an emergency landing on approach into Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport .
The April 23, 2024, incident involving Dana Air flight 352, an MD-82, skidding off the runway while landing at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos with 83 people on board is the latest in the litany of crisis for the troubled airline. As with others, the Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau, NSIB says it is reviewing the incident even as the operating license of the airline has been suspended.
For the records, the airline has been sanctioned and suspended over four times. Each time, the case is reviewed and operations continue, with business as usual. So what should be Dana’s fate with the latest incident?
If the incidents involving Dana Airline are anything, it is a warning sign for regulators to embark on a comprehensive audit of the airline to save air travelers from avoidable misfortune.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
