Passengers Shun Dana Airlines …Protest Re-licencing After June 3, Crash

Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs Ibim Semenitari and Works Commissioner, Hon Victor Giadom at the opening ceremony of a three- week pre budget workshop in Port Harcourt

For Dana Airline, the trouble is far from over as a large
number of air travelers have vowed not to board the flight until the report of
the investigation into the crash is made public

The passengers spoke in separate interviews with The Tide at
the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, following the restoration of
the airline’s operating licence by the Federal Government.

The Tide recalls that Dana Airline’s flight 0992 crashed on
June 3, killing 163 persons at Iju-Ishaga, a suburb of Lagos.

The passengers called on the federal government to publish a
complete report of the investigation to enable the public understand what led
to the crash, stressing that the right thing should be done to avert such
colossal loss in future.

A Port Harcourt-based businessman, Loveday Azundah said he
would not take such risk, adding that ‘ it is only in Nigeria where anything
that has to do with human life is not taken seriously”.

According to him, there is urgent need to get to the root of
what happened, if the nation’s aviation sector must move forward.

Also speaking, a fashion designer, Ngozi Okorie urged the
management of Dana Airline to carry out flight demonstration for a period of
one month to restore the confidence of air travelers in the airline.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Airline Passengers Association
(NAPA) has called on airline passengers to boycott aircraft belonging to Dana
Airlines when it resumes operations in the interest of their safety until all
the issues concerning the crash are resolved..

NAPA, in a statement signed by its president, Donald Nwandu and Executive Director, Umar Lukman stated that since the accident investigation bureau (AIB) was still probing the cause, it was too hasty and insensitive to allow the airline to resume operations.

The association expressed surprise that the airline was
given a clean bill of health when the AIB was yet to release its report on the
crash.

Reward Akwu