Nigeria' s reputable newspaper, thisday carried this story today.
An intresting piece:
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=33140
There were speculations at the weekend that the October 22, crash of Bellview airlines flight 210 which claimed 117 passengers, including the Defence Attache of American Embassy, Mr Joseph Haydon, may have been more than an accident.
This comes as Bellview management yesterday denied insinuations that the aircraft had a problem and the late pilot made complaints about it before the ill-fated flight.
The sabotage theory, according to THISDAY investigation, may have compelled officials of American National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) at the crash site to invite men of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to come and help unravel what is becoming a mystery and criminal investigation.
There were fears in security circles that because the Bellview evening (last) flight is usually patronised by top government functionaries and diplomats, sabotage cannot be completely ruled out.
The Abuja-bound Bellview plane ran into trouble after it lost contact with the control towers three minutes after take-off in Lagos and was believed to have gone down with a big bang, a rare occurence in aviation accidents. The fussilage of the plane was finally escavated last Thursday.
According to sources, investigations so far have revealed that there has been no evidence of mechanical problem with the aircraft engine and the posers they raise are: 'Why will a plane suddenly drop from the sky without warning? How come all the systems went down at the same time?'
THISDAY investigations further reveal that up till now, the black box has not been found while a full seat of the aircraft cannot even be pieced together from the wreckage.
One of the Nigerian officials who has been part of the investigation said the US experts argue that plane don't just drop from the sky without any warning signals that would have been communicated with the Control Towers as it happened in the Bellview crash.
THISDAY checks reveal that when the pilot taxied on the tarmac, he was instructed to turn left by the contol tower but he said he would turn right because the weather was better along that direction. A few seconds later, he communicated back that he would turn left as instructed because he had discovered the weather was indeed better on the left.
The pilot was said to have spoken after three minutes of take off while ascending after which he lost contact with the control towers. He was expected to make another contact at ten minutes after take off but by then it had crashed.
Meanwhile, Habib Mohammed, Bellview Head of Corporate Affairs yesterday described as false and unhelpful speculations that the crashed aircraft had problems.
Mohammed's statement said Imasuen who was the Captain on that flight and who took professional responsibility for the lives of 116 other passengers that evening, was not suicidal. "He was a highly professional staff whose integrity remained unquestionable.
"First officer Ernest Eshun, who was the second in command on that flight and shared the responsibility for a safe and smooth operation of the aircraft, could also not have been a culprit. F O Eshun is newly married and his wife was on the same flight that killed him and his wife and 115 others.
"Would this team, who have so much to live for, have simply succumbed to pressure to fly an unsafe aircraft? Would they have invited their loved ones were they in doubt of the safety of the flight?
"Against the popular wisdom that in case of an accident like this it is destructive to speculate, why do so many people assume the expetise to know what went wrong with Flight 21O? This is unhelpful and misguiding to the general public. The procedure for verifying the safety and serviceability of an aircraft is tested, comprehensive and standardised all over the world, and thus dependable. All well meaning people must await the completion of this investigation, which is already underway.
"American National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) has volunteered experts to help with the investigations relating to the crash. The process when completed should have unquestionable credibility. Surely, all we have to do is wait.
"However, there is a need to clear certain untruths that so many non experts have peddled as a holy grail in the wake of the tragedy. One, that the aircraft involved undertook another domestic flight earlier that fateful day and after take-off 'jerked' and 'jerked' several times before it achieved stable cruising, and was therefore unsafe.
"Someone had told the press that he travelled on the same aircraft from Abuja (another said Port Harcourt) and that they heard loud complaints about the poor state of the aircraft. Neither of these stories was true. The aircraft involved in the accident has registration number 5N -BFN, and the ill-fated flight was its second operation that day. The first was a flight to Accra/Abidjan on the West Coast. No one could have encountered that aircraft on any domestic flight on Saturday 22nd of October 2005.
"Moreso, aircraft in essence respond to turbulence and weather movements. It is therefore not unusual to experience occasions of rough flights. More so that Bellview in particular has subjected itself to operation, maintenance and safety standards that are acclaimed in international Aviation; as an lATA member airline and achieving the European Air Safety (part 145) Certification.
"Another rumour is suggesting that the beacon (Emer-gency Locator Transmitter -ELT) on the aircraft was outdated and it was responsible for the long hours involved in searching for the accident site. This is not true. The 212.0 MHz frequency beacon, by ICAO's specification, remains valid till year 2009. A beacon that the world’s highest Aviation authority certifies till 2009 cannot be said to be outdated in 2005. And yes, that aircraft had the Storm Arrester too.
"Yet another rumour; that Captain Imasuen was overworked that day by the time he took up Flight 210. This is far from the truth. Captain Imasuen resumed work on Friday at 3.00pm and had done only one Abuja return flight before he captained Flight 21O. At 8.50.pm, he would have worked for only six hours at most. Aviation regulations clearly specify a 12hour working day for a pilot with a following rest period of 12 hours.
"Other stories were rife that Engineer Sanni was on board Flight 21O that day because the aircraft was problematic and he was needed to hold it together. Engineer Sanni was onboard because the aircraft was going to night-stop in Abuja. Aircraft which have to sleep over in a non base station of an airline must carry an engineer who will see to the release of the aircraft the next morning. An aircraft will only be so released after human and other waste has been evacuated, amongst other routine look-overs.
"A foreign agent was well published to have claimed that he flew the same aircraft on the fateful day from Freetown to Banjul. This is another falsehood. 5N-BFN was never in Freetown or Banjul that day. It operated the Accra-Abidjan-Lagos service smoothly on Saturday the 22nd.
"It is heart rending for anyone at this period to be accused of cajoling Captains and Cabin crew to fly aircraft that are not airworthy. A Captain or Crew who must fly a plane against his wish will not invite others, loved or not, to come and risk death with him. Bellview Airlines is grieving deeply because we lost personal friends and people we have worked with for years.