Some passengers of Nigerian air carrier, Dana Airline, expressed fear when the door of an aircraft belonging to the airline fell off upon landing.
One of the passengers on the flight, Dapo Sanwo, told PT that the door panel was loose all through the flight, a situation he described as an indication of “lack of maintenance.”
Another passenger, Ola Brown, who took to his Twitter page to vent his frustration, said the experience was scary.
Mr. Brown narrated that the exit door of the aircraft was unstable all through the flight, adding that it fell off as soon as the aircraft landed.
“Flew Dana. The exit door was unstable throughout the flight. As we touched down, it fell off. Scary stuff,” he wrote on Twitter.
“I was closer to the front so when I heard the sound, (I) thought it was an explosion. (I) couldn’t quite comprehend that it (the door) had just fallen off.”
But reacting to the incident, the management of Dana Air said the door of its aircraft fell off because a passenger attempted to open it.
In a statement signed by Kingsley Ezenwa, the Media and Communications Manager at Dana Air, the Airline said the incident could not have happened if no one tried to open the door.
“We wish to state categorically that this could never have happened without a conscious effort by a passenger to open it (exit door),” the statement said.
According to Ezenwa, by design, the emergency exit door of the airline’s 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,” the statement explained.
It said further that a thorough inspection was however carried out on the said aircraft upon landing in Abuja, by the airline’s 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,” he said.
“The flight was only delayed for 8 minutes as we needed to demonstrate to the regulators that the safety and comfort of our guests is at the centre of our operations.
“We wish to apologise to our guests for any inconvenience such report may have caused and for the slight delay on the return service to Lagos.”