Abuja - Nigeria's Dana Air resumed flights on Friday, seven
months after one of its planes crashed into a Lagos apartment block, killing
163 people in the country's worst airline disaster in two decades.
The government lifted a ban on the airline in September but
an investigation is ongoing and there is still no official explanation of the
crash.
Dana Air's five remaining McDonnell Douglas MD-83's
operating in Nigeria have a capacity of 140.
Airline spokesman Tony Usidamen said 67 passengers were on
board the resumed Lagos-Abuja flight on Friday and 82 on the return journey.
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Dana airline staff issue boarding passes for a demonstration
Lagos- Abuja flight with celebrities, journalists and airline executives at the
Murtala Muhammed airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 4, 2013. Seven months
after one of Dana Air planes crashed, killing at least 163 people, the Nigerian
airline has resumed domestic flights in the West African nation. It was an
Abuja-Lagos flight that crashed on June 3 in a densely populated neighborhood
near Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, killing 153 people on
board and at least 10 on the ground. (AP
Photo/Sunday Alamba)
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“There was a round of applause for the very smooth landing,”
Usidamen said by telephone.
Tickets were sold for as little as 14,400 naira ($92) one
way, around half what some airlines are charging. Dana Air will only be flying
the Lagos-Abuja route for the time being.
The MD-83 crashed in a Lagos suburb on June 3, killing
everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.
The pilot reported dual engine failure before the plane went
down.
“We won't know the cause until the investigation has been
completed,” Aviation Ministry spokesman Joe Obi said. “A thorough audit of the
airline has been done and the remaining fleet is airworthy.”
Air crashes are relatively common in Nigeria, which despite
being Africa's second biggest economy has a poor air safety record, although it
had improved in the years before the Dana crash.
Even so, air travel remains the quickest and often safest
way to travel across a country nearly twice the size of Spain with a dangerous
and dilapidated road network.
International carrier Air Nigeria, formerly part of Richard
Branson's Virgin fleet, shut down in September due to what it called “staff
disloyalty and environmental challenges”. - Reuters
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