Plane Crash: Another Survivor dies
One of the six remaining survivors of the Associated Airlines plane crash in Lagos on Thursday died Saturday, despite concerted efforts to save his life.
The plane with 20 passengers on board was conveying the remains of former Ondo State governor Olusegun Agagu to his state for burial when it crashed about 10 minutes after take-off in Lagos.
The death of the man identified as Samson Hassan a staff of Magbamawo Industrial Company (MIC) Royal Ltd, has increased the total death toll from the plane crash to 15, with five survivors still battling for their lives.
Hassan had along with another survivor, Taiwo Akintunde, been kept under close watch at the highly sterilised Intensive Care Unit of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.
As at friday evening, the men were hooked up to the electronic monitors to help check their blood pressures and general health conditions with medical personnel at their beck and call at the unit battled to save his life, but effort wasn’t able too keep Hassan Alive.
Medical doctors and other health workers on duty were reported to have tried their best to prevent a relapse but the degree of injury sustained by the deceased were too much for Hassan to survived
His death was however confirmed by Mrs Bolanle Okusanya-Feyita (suspected to be CEO’s daughter), who spoke on behalf of the Magbamawo Industrial Company (MIC) Royal Ltd, where Hassan was a member of staff.
The company lost its Chief Executive Mr Olatunji Okusanya, his son, Mr Olatunji Okusanya Jnr and four members of staff- Mr Akeem Akintunde, Mr Chijioke Duru, Mr Kingsley Amaechi and now Hassan, in the crash.
Meanwhile, Operations of Associated Airlines have been suspended by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.
On the airworthiness of the aircraft and the genuineness of its insurance, the Director General of NCAA said that according to the documentations available to the NCAA, the aircraft was deemed worthy and had an insurance document that made it airworthy to fly, adding that the airline has engineers that were certified by the regulatory body.
He also said NCAA was satisfied with the aircraft and that was why the authority gave it an airworthiness certification. “The continued airworthiness certification of an airplane is largely the responsibility of the operator,” he added. “There are certified engineers there who are licensed and certified by NCAA who did sign the aircraft was air worthy; the pilot has the responsibility (to confirm) that the aircraft was air worthy and he accepted to fly it; so to that extent the NCAA cannot say anything to the contrary as we speak.”
While the director general was leaving the hospital, he was met by the son of the pilot of the ill-fated flight, Babatunde Yakubu. A tearful Yakubu said that his late father would never have flown an aircraft that was faulty.
The bereaved young man disclosed that his father was a careful pilot who would rather disagree with the airline’s management than fly such a bad aircraft.
Consoling him, Akinkuotu recalled how close he used to be with the deceased, saying that he had hired him when he was head of flight operations in one of the airlines that had gone under.
The director general also expressed satisfaction that many of the survivors of the crashed aircraft were responding to treatment and thanked the doctors and nurses attending to them.
