Air traffic controller gives coroner details of last 15 minutes of doomed Dana ...

The Air Traffic Controller on duty 3 June, when the Dana plane crashed in a Lagos suburb said on Tuesday that the pilot told him that the aircraft had dual engine and throttle failures.
Mr Rafiq Arogunjo of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) disclosed this while giving a Lagos Coroner the details of the last 15 minutes contact with the pilot of the ill-fated Dana flight which killed 153 people on board.
Arogunjo told the coroner, Magistrate Komolafe Oyetade, that he received distress call from the pilot at 3.42 p.m. local time, adding that three minutes after, the aircraft went off the radar.
He said that the plane was at 11 nautical miles to touch down when he received the distress call.
According to the Air Traffic Controller, emergency agencies, including fire services, search and rescue team and others were deployed to the landing field in the expectation that the plane would crash inside the airport.
He said that the expectation that the plane would crash inside the airport was based on the pilot’s request for approach on runway 18R which he was obliged.
“At 3.43 p.m. local time, I observed the aircraft on radar with dropping speed and altitude and then at 3.45 p.m., the aircraft went into coasted status that is, fading from the scope and later disappeared.
“I informed tower about this and few seconds later, tower said they could see the aircraft on the extended centre line of the runway with dark smoke,” he said.
In response to corona’s question on why the control tower could not receive a visual of the aircraft up till the time it crashed, Arogunjo said that NAMA did not have the equipment for such operation.
He said: “what we have is terminal approach radar. It will not show the object on the ground; the one that will show objects on the ground is surveillance radar and we don’t have it in Nigeria.’’
Arogunjo further disclosed that an Ibadan-bound private helicopter volunteered to be vectored to the crash site for observation and assistance.
He said that the location of the crash was not in doubt as the control tower had the ‘’coordinates which was passed to other parties.’’
Another witness, Dr Oluwafemi Osanyintolu, the General Manager, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), told the coroner that the huge crowd at the crash site was an impediment to rescue operations.
Osanyintolu said that emergency agencies on ground, including firemen, Rapid Respond Squad, ambulance, LASTMA and policemen, could not access the aircraft immediately.
He said that when the emergency agencies were overwhelmed by the crowd, the Disaster Rescue Unit of the Nigerian Army was deployed to assist in the rescue operation.
The coroner inquest continues its sitting on Wednesday.