Search for bodies ends at site of Nigeria air crash

Nigerian rescuers have ended search operations at the site of a plane crash that killed at least 159 people in the country's largest city to concentrate on clearing debris, an official said Wednesday.

While formal searches have ended, workers will remain on the lookout for human remains while clearing debris from the site on the northern outskirts of Lagos. A total of 153 bodies have so far been recovered. "We're not doing full searching operations," said Yushau Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency. "What we are doing now is we are trying to clear the place and fumigate the area."

All 153 people on board the Dana Air MD83 died when it crashed into a neighbourhood near the airport in Lagos on Sunday afternoon, while at least six people on the ground were killed. The 22-year-old plane plowed into a two-storey apartment block, a church, a house and a textbook warehouse.

The ruins of the apartment block were torn down on Tuesday. "The search and rescue operation has ended with the demolition of the affected building. We are now moving the next phase which is disaster victim identification," National Emergency Management Agency official Ibrahim Farinloye told AFP. Farinloye said DNA tests would be conducted to enable relatives to claim the the remains of their relatives.

Nigerian aviation authorities on Tuesday suspended the operating licence of Dana Air pending investigation into the crash. Local media said the crash was Nigeria's worst since 1992, when a military C-130 went down after takeoff in Lagos, killing around 200 people on board.

The plane's two engines were reported to have failed before it crashed, the country's civil aviation chief has said. Wednesday 6 June 2012 http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/631716-search-for-bodies-ends-at-site-of-nigeria-air-crash.html

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Crash: 43 bodies identified

Forty-three bodies of the victims of Sunday plane crash have been identified by their family members, Chief Medical Director of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Prof Wale Oke, said on Tuesday.

 The CMD also revealed that 103 bodies had been burnt beyond recognition and had been moved from LASUTH morgue to the Mainland Hospital, Yaba, for further forensic examination. “Twenty-nine bodies were earlier identified, but another 14 have also being identified now, making a total of 43,” Oke told our correspondent late on Tuesday.

In the first batch of 29 corpses already identified was that of a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police John Ahmadu Hamza. The identities of the other 14 were yet to be released on Tuesday. Oke however said the bodies could not be immediately released to family members of the deceased in view of the coroner law in operation in the state. “Nobody has been taken away. There is a state law on coroner inquest with all of them dying suddenly in a plane crash, they would require autopsy and investigations. Litigation cannot (also) be ruled out. So we must do it right,” he said.

The LASUTH CMD added, “We require all these and also more examinations, so as to ensure that we are giving the bodies to the right persons. We need forensic examination and DNA testing as part of the requirement. X-rays are being done, tissues are being taken to properly identify the bodies being processed. “Then we would face the unrecognisable ones squarely. That is why we are doing things steadily. Some of them have ATM cards, identity cards but we must carry out those tests to make sure the right persons carry the right body.”

Bereaved relations of victims of the plane crash besieged LASUTH on Tuesday to fill identification forms in a bid to identify the corpses. At the Dana Air Crisis Information Centre at the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, the hospital gave out data forms to the bereaved relations to fill as a guide to identifying the bodies. The forms requested identification materials, including international passports or driving licence, gender and dates of births, nationality, states of origin, local government details, phone numbers, residential addresses, occupation of the relations as well as that of the deceased to be identified.

A passenger plane, MD-83, operated by Dana Airlines, crashed onto houses in the residential area of Iju-Ishaga, a suburb of Lagos on Sunday, killing all the 153 on board, including the crew members.

Eager relations of the victims already identified on Tuesday asked the hospital authorities to release their corpses. But Oke said the bodies could not be released yet and asked for three days before releasing the bodies. “In three days’ time we should have finished the autopsy report and then we can give the bodies to the relatives. Our forensic team is on hand but they just started today. We are being very careful and professional,” he said.

A group of Chinese nationals who work with a popular construction company in Lagos came in a convoy of six cars to identify their dead colleagues. The construction firm, CCECC, lost six employees to the crash. One of the six had been identified to be among the first batch of 29. One of the Chinese, Jason Wu, who spoke with our correspondent, said he was desperate to see his colleagues’ bodies, as only one, Kanguyi, had been identified out of the six who died in the crash. “We have only found one of the six corpses. The hospital said we can’t take the body today; some protocol need to be followed. We need the corpses so that we can take them back to China for burial,” Wu said. Wednesday 6 June 2012 http://www.punchng.com/news/crash-43-bodies-identified/

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Ajuonuma, four others bought last-minute air tickets

Five passengers, including the General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, who died on the Dana Air flight that crashed in Lagos on Sunday, were not originally on the passengers’ list, The PUNCH investigation has shown.

Ajuonuma and the four other victims bought the tickets of passengers that did not make it to the airport for the departure of the ill-fated aircraft. Dana Station Manager at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, Mr. Ade Kayode, confirmed that the late NNPC spokesman and the others travelled in place of those who did not make it to join the flight. Kayode said, “You know so many people buy tickets online. So there were many passengers that bought tickets online that could not show up. Their tickets were sold to passengers that wanted to travel. Levi Ajuonuma was among them. “Unfortunately I cannot give you the names of those that did not show up because they are no longer on our system.

However, any passenger that bought the ticket but could not travel can come forward for refund because they did not use their tickets.” He said the names of all the passengers that eventually travelled were put on the manifest.

When reminded that the manifest had the names of 146 passengers while the aircraft had capacity for only 140 passengers, he said that 140 passengers were adults while the remaining six were infants that travelled in company with adults.

The disclosures came amid denial by the Ministry of Aviation that the airspace was closed against the crashed plane in order to facilitate President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife’s movement on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the National Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday that it had stopped further search for bodies at the crash site. Spokesman for NEMA in the Lagos zone, Ibrahim Farinloye, said the agency was satisfied that it had recovered all it could for the time being. He added that the stoppage would pave the way for the Accident Investigation Bureau to take over and conduct investigations into the causes of the crash and how a reoccurrence could be prevented. He said, “From our records, we have 86 males, 49 females and 12 children. We have yet to determine the sex of the remaining corpses.

Out of these 153 bodies, only 40 were identifiable; we have to do what we call Disaster Victim Identification on the rest.” Farinloye added that the corpses had been taken to the mortuary at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital to allow their relations to have access to them for burial. He said NEMA would still be at the site to assess the level of danger that the crash posed to the community. “We are not ruling out fumigation of entire area. There will also be counselling of the victims’ relatives and we have to find a way of rehabilitating internally displaced persons,” the NEMA spokesperson said.

He added that property belonging to 24 of the victims had been identified and tagged. He said the property were bags, identification cards, BlackBerries, Ipads, laptops and foreign currencies among others.

 Farinloye explained that five families were affected in the two storey building that was hit by the plane. He said one of the flats was unoccupied. “We learnt that the tenant moved out of the apartment on Sunday morning, a few hours before the crash,” he said. Wednesday 6 June 2012 http://www.punchng.com/news/ajuonuma-four-others-bought-last-minute-air-tickets/

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