Dana Air Flight 0992 was a scheduled Nigerian domestic passenger flight from Abuja to Lagos, Nigeria. On 3 June 2012, the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft serving the route suffered a dual-engine failure during its approach to Lagos. It failed to reach its intended destination and crashed onto buildings, killing all 153 people on board and six on the ground. With 159 deaths, it remains as the deadliest commercial airliner crash in Nigerian history since the Kano air disaster in 1973.
Nigerian Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) concluded that both of the aircraft's engines had lost power during the approach to Lagos. Incorrect assembly had severed the engines' fuel line, causing fuel to not be delivered to both engines. During the initial sequence of the engine failure, the pilots opted not to declare an emergency until the second engine lost power during the flight's final approach. Lack of situational awareness and poor decision-making by the pilots eventually caused the aircraft to crash into buildings.
The crash once again highlighted Nigeria's aviation safety record. It was the fifth major Nigerian aviation disaster in a decade, after EAS Airlines Flight 4226 in 2002, Bellview Airlines Flight 210 and Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 in 2005, and ADC Airlines Flight 053 in 2006. Consequently, it led to a major overhaul of the nation's aviation sector. Since the crash of Flight 0992, Nigeria's aviation safety improved significantly and the country eventually retained the category 1 status of its aviation safety.
Aircraft
The aircraft was a twin-engined McDonnell Douglas MD-83, registered in Nigeria as 5N-RAM, built in 1990 and first delivered to Alaska Airlines under the registration of N944AS, and operated until the airline retired their MD-80s in 2008. It was sold to another airline before being acquired by Dana Air in February 2009. The airframe had accumulated more than 60,800 hours of total flight time since new. The aircraft engines had over 55,300 and 26,000 hours of total flight time before the crash. The last maintenance on the aircraft was performed on 2 June 2012, exactly a day before the accident.
Passengers and crew
Passengers
Flight 0992 was carrying 147 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals from 9 countries. The foreigners were six Chinese nationals, three Americans, two Indians, and one each from Benin, Canada, Germany, France, and Lebanon.
Among those on board were Celestine Onwuliri, husband of then-Nigerian Foreign Minister Viola Onwuliri, Ehime Aikhomu, son of late Nigerian admiral and former Nigerian Vice President Augustus Aikhomu, Ibrahim Damcida, former Permanent Secretary of the Nigerian Ministry of Finance, Levi Chibuike Ajuonuma, then-spokesperson of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, and Shehu Sa’ad, Director of major Nigerian bank Mainstreet Bank Limited. Local media reported that several senior military officials were also on the flight.
Crew
The aircraft was carrying 6 crew members, including an American captain, an Indian First Officer, an Indonesian flight engineer and three Nigerian flight attendants.
The captain was 55-year-old Peter Waxtan. He had a total flying experience of 18,116 hours, with 7,466 hours on the MD-83. He was a captain for Spirit Airlines from 1997 to 2009. He also was reported to have flown for Falcon Air Express, a charter airline in Miami. The captain was hired by Dana Air on 14 March 2012. He began flying line training operations under the supervision of a training captain on 26 April 2012 after completing ground school and simulator training. He held several ratings, including Airbus A320, McDonnell Douglas DC-9, Fokker F-27, and Saab 340. In his time, his license was suspended by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), due to multiple hard landings and for failing to report maintenance issues, receiving a new license in August 2011.
The first officer, Mahendra Singh Rathore, was a 34-year-old with a total flying experience of 1,143 hours, with 808 hours on the MD-83. He was previously employed at Dana Air as the director of cabin service before he was hired as a pilot in January 2011.