What a price to pay....

This is by far  the saddest day of my life. i am so sad and beaten....and still, i wasn't directly affected. i wonder what i will be doing now if i was affected in anyway.

Fortunately, all the people i know who where meant to be on board the ill fated Dana plane missed their flight deliberately or otherwise. this is a nation where things, lots of things are taken for granted, a nation where our priorities are not set right. it is so easy to blame the Nigerian government, Dana management (of which the total blame is on by the way) and our rescue team who i believe got to the scene about 40 mins after the plane landed. i ask myself "What if?" but that will not change what has happened or will it?
Do you know how many lives have been altered???? How aware are we as Nigerians that over 100 families have lost a dear one? It could have been anybody you know.... this wasn't a planned death, but it was a "death" waiting to happen. The ill fated plane was manufactured in 1984.  that is a 27 years old plane.....

the history of the plane after the cut
There are indications that the Dana Air MC Donnell Douglas MD 83 which crashed around Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos ,yesterday has a history of worrying defaults even before original owners, US-based Alaska Airlines sold it to Dana Airlines on February 17, 2009.
According to the information from Aviation Safety Network, an exclusive service of the Air safety Foundation, the ill-fated aircraft was acquired by Alaska Airline in November 13, 1990  with registration number N944AS.
However, on November 4, 2002 the aircraft developed fault and had emergency diversion due to smoke and electrical smell in the cabin area, which engineers said was because light ballast had over heated.
Four years after, the aircraft’s health was also called to question when on August 20, 2006, it was again evacuated after landing at the Long Beach, CA due to a chaffed wire bundle that discharged and produced smoke in the cabin area again.
Apparently scared that the worst could happen, Alaska Airlines was said to have on August 21 parked the aircraft at Victorville until September 11 2008 when it carried out maintenance on it.
Eventually on February 2009 Alaska Airlines shifted the burden to Nigeria when it sold the ill-fated plane as 5N-RAM. The MD-83 was manufactured in 1983, announced go-ahead on January 31, 1983 and had first flight on December 17, 1984
It was a longer range development of the basic MD-81/82 with higher weights, more powerful engines, increased fuel capacity and longer range.  It was equipped with slightly more powerful 21,000 1bf (93 kN) Pratt and Whitney JT8D-219s as standard.
The aircraft also had higher operating weights with MTOW increased to 160,000 1b and MLW to 139,500 1b. Typical range for the MD-83 with 155 passengers in around 2,504 nautical miles (4,637km).


Are we so poor that we cant afford new planes? must we get damaged ones? and let me be frank here.... the bloody Indian manager that authorized the movement of that plane even after series of warnings should be arrested and jailed or burnt. Who do they think they are?? Coming here to tell us what to do, how to do it, when to do it? and we take that from them? Wait a minute...... Isn't safety the first thing anymore? isn't it more important??? Why do we allow avoidable disasters happen? Why?

Oh! I am so pained!!! i am so sad.... i can go on and on and on... but i will stop here with this...
"it is too late for the 153 passengers, but it is not too late for us, we can make a difference. we can do better. imagine what would have been going through the minds of 153 people those few last minutes before their death....... let us reorder and shape our lives, let us move closer to Our God. Unless a man be born again....."