By Ngozi Obiwulu
In the early hours of Thursday, September 3, 2013, a plane belonging to Associated Airline crashed along the Sahara premises, NACO junction of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja in Lagos.
The plane confirmed to have belonged to Associated Airlines, which was scheduled to travel from Lagos to Akure crashed shortly after takeoff, an engineer working around the crash site tells NET.
‘The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff. It had 20 passengers on board and suspected cases of survivals’, an eyewitness, Director of Engineering at African Independent television (AIT), Emmanuel Idiala told NET when our reporter visited the crash site.
A discharge bay refueling station, housing tankers of PMS is said to have increased the fire shortly after the accident occurred causing the black flames rising up for hours. Fire fighters arrived shortly at the crash site to out the fire.
Officers of the Nigerian Police Force were also on site to assist airport authorities with preventing hundreds of people from getting close to the crashed plane.
There has been no statement from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) but several reports and sources have said the 27-seater cargo plane carried the body of late Ondo State governor, Olusegun Agagu and 20 other passengers including his family members were on board. Contrary to earlier reports, some passengers did survive the crash.
Segun Demuren, son of former General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority confirmed Agagu was on board. ‘A small plane was carrying corpse of late #Agagu to Akure’, Demuren announced through his Twitter.
Speaking to the General Manager, Corporate Communications of MMIA, Yakubu Dati, he confirmed the cases of death, destruction of property, and most importantly survival.
‘We have been able to recover two black boxes that will help in our investigation. Rescue operations commenced immediately and some survivals are receiving treatment in the hospital. We will like to call on the public to shun unconfirmed reports and speculations that could mar the ongoing investigation’, Gowon said.
The General manager/Chief executive officer of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Oluwafemi Damilola spoke on the rescue team and their level of work so far; ‘We used sophisticated equipment to rescue people and the rate of mortality associated with the crash was greatly reduced. We have taken them to the Airforce Base, General Hospital for treatment’.
Today marks exactly 16months since over 150 lives were recorded dead at Iju-Ishaga neighbourhood of Lagos State after an engine failure of the Dana aircraft occurred on Sunday, June 3, 2012.
Check out for some pictures from the crash site below….
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