Nigerian carrier Dana Air is blaming passengers for an emergency exit door falling off one of its planes during landing.
The incident occurred on one of the airline’s five peak daily MD83 departures last Wednesday from Lagos to Abuja, Nigeria.
Here’s video from inside the cabin where the door went missing.
Scary. Another airliner off my list.. pic.twitter.com/hYADIA08Xu
— CAB van der Vinne (@JoopvanderVinne) February 7, 2018
Here’s a close up:
Flew Dana. Exit door was unstable throughout the flight. As we touched down it fell off. Scary stuff. pic.twitter.com/eDtTlNi2TZ
— Ola Brown(Orekunrin) (@NaijaFlyingDr) February 7, 2018
Passengers reported that the door was ‘unstable’ throughout the flight. However the airline defends itself saying this wouldn’t be possible unless a passenger behaved badly,
”We wish to state categorically that this could never have happened without a conscious effort by a passenger to open it.”
“By design, the emergency exit door of our aircraft are plug-type backed by pressure, which ordinary cannot fall off without tampering or conscious effort to open by a crew member or passenger.”
“We also wish to enlighten the author that, when an aircraft is airborne, it is fully pressurized and there was no way the seat or door could have been ‘shaking’ as insinuated.”
“A thorough inspection was however carried out on the said aircraft upon landing in Abuja, by our engineers and a team from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), and no issue was reported. There was also no threat to safety at any point.”
A passenger tells CNN, “I was one foot away from the emergency exit door, so I could see the handle was popping out,”
“We were in the process of landing, that was when the door just opened. The white man by the door had to shift because the door would have hit him. When he shifted the door now fell on the floor of the plane.”
“Maybe it was breeze, but the door came off completely and the passengers came to check and began shouting and taking photos. I wonder what would have happened if the door fell off mid-air.”
The airline reports the incident caused only an eight minute delay with the aircraft.
(HT: Live and Let’s Fly)
Only an 8-minute delay? Well, at least you have to applaud their commitment do D0. AA would be proud.
Did they fix it with duct tape and put it back into service?
“We wish to state categorically….” Well, that always makes a fact a fact……it’s the equivalent of “fake news”. Just another reason to make sure you are flying the mainline airlines….
First your blog is pretty good second i think airlines should care about those small details