7th June, 2012
The six cabin crew members who were on board Dana flight 992 that crashed on Sunday, killing everyone on board, have been revealed.
The Captain of the ill-fated Dana flight was Captain Peter Waxtan, 55, and an American.
The first officer, the airline said on telephone today was an Indian whose name was given as Mahendra Singh Rathore while the engineer on board was Bidyo, an Indonesian.
His surname was not given.
There were three Nigerians among them. Vivienne Atangakak, 34, who was to get married on 28 July. She had paid for everything, including the hall.
The other cabin crew was Uche Ulasi who was to proceed on leave two weeks before the plane crashed. The last crew member was Eke Godwin
This is the first time that their identities are being revealed by the airline.
Meanwhile, at least 13 bodies are missing from the final count of corpses recovered at the site of the Dana plane crash, P.M.NEWS learnt on Wednesday.
Dana flight 992 crashed in Iju area of Lagos as it was approaching the Murtala Muhammed airport, hitting two buildings and bursting into flames.
In all, only 149 bodies were recovered, said Mr. Ade Ipaye, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, southwest Nigeria, where Dana flight 992 crashed on Sunday.
Ipaye, at a press conference on Wednesday, said that only 52 bodies are identifiable while 97 were burnt beyond recognition.
The plane crash killed all 152 passengers on board and 10 others on the ground, according to previous government counts.
The 52 identifiable bodies have been taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, at Ikeja, Lagos, while the 97 charred bodies were taken to the Lagos Mainland mortuary, Ipaye said.
ìIt is possible that a bag contains the parts of two persons,î he said, explaining the discrepancy in passenger figure.
The airline first said there were 153 passengers on board, but with revelations that Major General Tahir Umar, whose name appeared on the flight manifest, missed his flight, the figure was reduced to 152. Authorities also said that at least 10 bodies were recovered from the ground.
He said the bodies will not be released now as they will have to be properly identified and matched with names of victims on the flight manifest.
Ipaye disclosed that autopsy was conducted on 12 bodies on Tuesday and 18 on Wednesday. He added that the other 22 would be tested between Thursday today and Friday.
ìThe relatives have to bear with us. Each of the victims is entitled to compensation and we are aware that Dana is fully insured,î he said.
The Chief Medical Examiner, John Oladapo Obafuwa, described to journalists the process the bodies take when they get to the hospital, adding that all the bodies would be identified in the next two weeks and released to their families.
He disclosed that there are four Pathology teams with four persons in each of the teams, three of them headed by a forensic pathologist.
A director at Dana Airline, Mr. Francis Ogboro, was vague and provided lame answers even as he could not name Dana insurers or provide basic operational answers.
The legal consultant to Dana Air, Barrister Yomi Oshikoya, explained that the airline is fully insured by Lloyd of London.
He said, according to the law, relatives of the victims must receive 30,000 dollars within 30 days of the crash and up to 100, 000 dollars when identification is concluded.
Ipaye said foreign embassies have been contacted to provide information need to identify their citizens.
On the plane were Americans, Chinese, French, a Canadian, a Lebanese, a German, an Indian and an Indonesian. There could have been other foreigners yet to be identified.
In another development, the Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, has kicked against the federal government’s suspension of Dana Air’s license.
At a briefing in Lagos today, the AON said it was wrong to suspend Dana’s license while investigation is still on going.
AON advised the government to allow the Accident Investigation Bureau and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority do their job.
By Simon Ateba