Licence Back In Hand, Dana Airline Joins Plot To End Inquest Into Crash

DANA

Dana Airline on Thursday filed an affidavit to support a motion to halt the ongoing inquest into the cause of the crash involving its McDonnell Douglas MD-83 on 3rd June, killing all 153 people aboard as well as at least six residents of a building in Iju-Ishaga, Agege.

The affidavit, described by the presiding judge as “a novel issue” comes just one day after the Federal Government lifted an earlier suspension on the airline’s operating licence.

The plaintiffs, Dele Ore and the Civil Aviation Round Table Initiative, want the Federal High Court, Lagos to end the inquest on the point that the Lagos State Coroners’ System Law is inapplicable to deaths arising from aviation accidents.

Joined as the 1st to the 4th defendants in the suit are Oyetade Komolafe, the coroner; the Chief Coroner of Lagos State; the Lagos State Chief Judge; and the Attorney General of Lagos State, respectively.

Also joined as defendants are the Attorney General of the Federation; the Federal Ministry of Aviation; Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA); Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN); Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB); Nigeria Air Space Management Authority (NAMA); and Dana Airlines.

Delivering the bench ruling, Okon Abang, the presiding judge, said that although there is no provision allowing a defendant to file a motion in support of the affidavit of a plaintiff, the court will rely on it if it will be of use.

“The most important issue is to consider if the interest of the 1st – 4th defendants will be prejudiced,” he said.

“The 1st – 4th defendants are at liberty to file their objection to the affidavit if they so wish.”

He fixed 13th September for “definite hearing” of the plaintiff’s motion for interlocutory injunction.

Ore, a retired pilot, had filed the suit on behalf of the Civil Aviation Round Table, asking the court to pronounce the Lagos State Chief Judge as acting ultra vires by inaugurating a coroner’s inquest into the air mishap.

He argued that the country’s ratification and domestication of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Chicago 1944 Act, renders the coroner’s inquest “unconstitutional, null and void, and of no effect whatsoever.”

He equally urged the court to hold that the Coroners’ is inapplicable to aviation-related matters and deaths arising from aviation accidents.

And in their affidavit at the court, Dana Air’s counsel corroborated the positions of the plaintiffs, saying, “The crux of instituting this application is in the sole interest of the public. The inquest ought not to have commenced until the conclusion of the AIB investigation. The coroner has subjected the AIB report to scrutiny by various experts.”