Revelations emerged on Friday that the crashed aircraft belonging to Associated Airlines actually gave signals that all was not well but the signals were ignored by the pilot.
An examination conducted on the Cockpit Voice Data Recorder by the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) inside its Abuja laboratory revealed that the computer in the plane gave a warning signal to Captain Yakubu Abdulrahman, before take-off.
The Data Recorder, which had 32.5 minutes of audio conversation between the pilot and the first officer, further showed an argument between the first officer and the pilot, as the first officer wanted the plane’s take-off aborted but his advice was rebuffed by the pilot.
According to the AIB, the disagreement between the two again shortly before the crash of the plane, finally crashed showed some danger. The plane, which was conveying the corpse of the late former Governor of Ondo State from Lagos to Ondo for interment, crashed on October 3 in Lagos killing 15 people.
AIB’s commissioner, Captain Muhhtar Usman, who read out the findings of the examination in Abuja on Friday, said the first officer’s statements as retrieved from the airline’s black box revealed that he was uncomfortable with the state of the aircraft.
The AIB said in response to the first’s officer question to abort, the captain indicated that they should continue “and they continued the take-off roll. During the rotation after take-off, the first officer stated: ‘gently’, which we believe reflects concern that the aircraft is not performing normally and therefore needs to be rotated very gently so as not to aero dynamically stall the aircraft.”
Mid-air, the right engine began to work very slowly, as it began to produce lesser thrusts than the left engine. According to the retrieved information, the first officer further showed some concerns that were ignored.
AIB said the first officer asked if the take-off should be aborted again approximately 12 seconds after the ‘eight knots’ callout. The crew discussed some concerns about the aircraft prior to departure but the Bureau said it was not prepared to mention the concerns as investigations had not ended.
Nigerians had been raising serious concerns about the safety of the country’s airspace since the incident occurred, some even calling for the sack of Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah. The airline also said the 23-year old plane was last serviced three months before it crashed.