Oduah said sending the black boxes to the US was to ensure that a
thorough investigation was carried out to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the crash.
The minister spoke with State House correspondents shortly after a special Federal Executive Council meeting organised to round off the three-day national mourning declared by the Federal Government in honour of the crash victims.
She said, “At the site of the incident, there were officials of the AIB who gathered information; they cut the parts from the aircraft, looking for clues. Every and any information that they take will be taken back to the laboratory where it will be analysed to get the exact reason for the accident.
“But in addition to that, because we do not have a laboratory for that, things like the black boxes, for instance, we need to take them outside the country for proper analysis and then they come back.
Oduah said President Goodluck Jonathan had approved the setting up of a nine-man technical and administrative panel that will audit all airlines operating in the country.
The move, she explained, was to avoid a recurrence of such incident in the nation’s airspace.
She said the committee, which has a time frame of six months to complete its assignment, was expected to come up with a comprehensive report on each of the airlines in the country.
She gave the names of members of the committee as Group Captain John Obakpolor (rtd) (Chairman); Capt. Austin Omame; Capt. Dele Sasegbon, Dr. O.B Aliu, F.C. Onyeyiri, Capt. Mfon Udom, Capt. Mukhtar Usman, Dr. Tony Anuforom and Capt. A. Mshelia.
She said the President had also approved the implementation of the report of a Central Bank of Nigeria/Ministry of Aviation’s committee on the financial stability of the airlines.
Oduah disclosed that reports of committees on the Sosoliso and ADC Airlines crashes were ready.
She promised that the findings would soon be made public because of the lessons to be learnt from them.
“I want to say that all the reports of past air crashes, the Sosoliso, ADC, etc are ready and when we get the proper approval to release to the public. We will do so because it serves no purpose to keep them because it is for public knowledge, because there are lessons we should learn from such incidents and not allow it re-occur, that is the purpose,” she said.
At least 108 persons died in the Sosoliso 1145 DC-9 plane crash on Saturday, December 10, 2005 at the Port Harcourt Airport, while the 2006 ADC crash led to the death of 96 passengers and one on-the-ground victim. Among the dead in the ADC crash was the then Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Maccido; and Abdulrahman, son of the second republic President Shehu Shagari.
Culled- Punch
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