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Plane Crashes Trotro; Kills 12 At Hajj Village
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Plane Crashes Trotro; Kills 12 At Hajj Village
A Nigerian registered cargo aircraft on Saturday evening overshot the Kotoka International Airport runway, hit the facility’s perimeter fence and crash-landed near the El Wak Stadium after ramming a Daewoo taxi cab and a Benz 207 passenger bus, killing 10 passengers onboard the vehicle instantly.
Two other persons on the ground, including a military officer who was riding a motor-bike, also perished.
Four out of the 12 dead persons had been identified as Gideon Ansah Kumi, 19, a final-year student of Harvard Senior High School At Accra New Town; George Osei, 33, driver of the 207 bus; Kwame Boadu, 24, the mate; and Evans Tabariyeng, 34, a passenger on board the vehicle.
However, four crew members of the cargo plane survived the crash and were said to be receiving medical attention at the 37 Military Hospital.
According to a Ghana News Agency report, the crew members were Nigerians.
The captain of the crew explained that the crash occurred after a technical problem involving the brakes on the aircraft, adding that he was sorry about the casualties involved in the accident.
In another development yesterday, 162 passengers were killed when a DANA airline from Abuja to Lagos crashed into residential houses in Lagos.
The freak accident in Ghana occurred when the Nigeria-based Allied Cargo Airline Boeing 727-200 aircraft, with registration number 5NBJN and laden with general goods, arrived from Lagos en route to Abidjan after a scheduled stopover in Accra. It had problems when it sought to land on the runway of the Kotoka International Airport in a rainstorm.
After overshooting the runway at a terrific speed, it went through the facility’s fence, hitting first a Daewoo taxi cab with registration number GR 4642-12, carrying the driver and a female passenger and then mangled the trotro vehicle with registration number GR 5471 Z.
For those who lived in the vicinity of the airport, the unusual noise they heard when the aircraft hit the ground was ominous.
An air crash was certainly out of the question as such mishaps are not common in the country, they had thought. When however news about an air crash hit the airwaves, the emotions of most of Ghanaians knew no bounds as they asked whether there were casualties.
A doctor at the airport medical clinic near the runway said he heard “a loud bang and screeches” and then went outside, where he saw a plume of smoke rising from the accident scene.
Survivors of the accident, the four crew members, were taken to the nearby Airport Clinic for treatment before being transferred to the 37 Military Hospital.
An eyewitness who turned up after the crash said the dead were put in body bags and moved to the 37 Military Hospital morgue.
The relevant agencies, the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Armed Forces, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Ghana Civil Aviation Authority and the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) all contributed immensely towards the management of the situation.
An Emergency Operating Centre was set up comprising the military, GCAA, GACL, NADMO, Ghana Police and other emergency agencies to manage any eventuality emanating from the accident.
The Emergency Operating Centre (EOC) dealing with the plane crash issued a statement that indicated that the aircraft was a Boeing 727-200 with registration number 5NBJN en route from Lagos via Accra to Abidjan.
“The aircraft, on landing, overshot the runway and went through the airport perimetre fence. It then hit a Daewoo taxi cab with a lady passenger in it and ran through a mini-van on the Giffard Road (El Wak-Burma Camp),” it said.
The statement confirmed the initial 10 fatalities consisting of one female and nine males on board the trotro and advised the public that the road between El Wak traffic light and the Burma Camp Shell filling station had been cordoned off until further notice.Probe
A five-member committee was inaugurated yesterday to probe the accident. With 30 days to submit its report to the Minister of Transport, Collins Dauda, the committee is chaired by Captain Alex Grant Sam.
Other members of the probe committee are Ben Boutu, Executive Director, Safety Regulation, Ben Sakpaku, Executive, GCAA Deputy Director, Safety Regulation, Eric Ewusi, Safety Regulation and Kenneth Kofi Kwawukume, Executive Deputy Director, Air Traffic Services.
Security Agencies
Vice President John Dramani Mahama, when he addressed the media shortly after his arrival from Brazil, said government was assessing the situation and lauded the efforts of the agencies which responded promptly to the emergency.
Regarding the inconvenience from the cordoning off of the road from the military hospital towards Burma Camp and La, he asked for the cooperation and patience of the public.
President Mills, in the company of his Spokesperson and ‘defacto president’ Koku Anyidoho and Nii Lante Vanderpuye, also visited the crash scene yesterday morning.
Pool Of Water
Initial investigations suggested that the aircraft landed in a pool of water before overshooting the runway, authorities said on Sunday.
“What we know for now is that it was raining at the time and the plane landed in a pool of water and that created some challenges for the pilot,” Doreen Owusu Fianko, managing director of the Ghana Airports
Company, told reporters when President John Atta Mills visited the scene.
Fianko said the plane was carrying general goods including textiles, perfumes and clothing from Nigeria to the Ivory Coast via Accra.
Parts of the aircraft’s nose, wing and undercarriage were torn, with the airport’s perimeter wall near the road smashed.
The Ghanaian airspace and airport was however not affected as international flights departed on schedule.
Aviation Safety
On April, 24, 1969, however a Douglas C-47A 9G-AAF crashed when it approached the Takoradi Airport on a domestic flight from the Kotoka Airport, claiming the life of one out of the 33 passengers and crew onboard.
Disaster was averted a few years ago when an aircraft flew into a flock of birds, with an engine sucking one of them.
Another near-disaster was recorded when the wings of two aircraft, a Lufthansa and a Turkish airline, grazed each other at the Kotoka International Airport, causing a delay in incoming and outbound flights at the airport.
Private cargo aircraft in West Africa are not known to adhere to routine maintenance requirement, DAILY GUIDE learnt from an aviation expert.
A few years ago, aviation experts warned of possible air crashes given what they claimed was the lack of efficient communication between air traffic controllers and pilots.
Such communications, they pointed out, were occasionally interrupted, thus threatening the safety of aircraft. The concerns were contained in a five-page report which blamed the situation on the reckless construction of houses and other structures on the flight path of aircraft.
In a reaction to the report, a team led by the Director-General of the GCAA, Air Commodore K. Mamphey (rtd), after studying the situation, confirmed that indeed the flight path which follows the Main Aircraft Navigation Instrument through to the Tema Motorway and towards the panel lights of the airport are being impaired by such structures as pointed above.
The situation, he noted, had resulted in complaints by pilots about intermittent disruptions in communication between them and air traffic controllers.
By A.R. Gomda
Source: Daily Guide/Ghana
