Associated crash: Insurers hit by another aviation claims

Chuks Udo Okonta

Insurance Companies are in for another round of claims settlement with today’s crash of Associated Aircraft which claimed 14 lives.

This is coming after 16 months - June 3, 2012, in which Dana Air plane crashed in Lagos and left 153 passengers and crew members dead.

According to internationally acceptable standard on aviation insurance, the relatives of each victim are entitled to $100,000 (N16 million) each as claims.

The Director-General, Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) Sunday Thomas, said the insurance industry commiserate with the families of the victims, adding that the association has lunched out an enquiry to ascertain whether the aircraft was properly insure.

He noted that the association will come up with detailed information as things unfold, adding that effort is being made to know the insurers that underwriter the aircraft if it was insured.

The charter plane with 20 people on board suffered engine failure shortly after takeoff from Lagos, crash-landing near an airport fuel depot.

The aircraft made by the Brazilian firm Embraer and operated by Nigeria's Associated Airlines took off at 9.30am (6.30pm AEST Thursday) from Lagos's Murtala Mohammed International Airport, the aviation ministry said in a statement.

The flight destined for Akure in Ondo state (southwest) crashed two minutes after takeoff with 13 passengers and seven crew on board, according to the ministry.

There were "six survivors and 14 fatalities," Aviation Minister Stella Oduah said in a statement.

An official from the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency said the cause of the crash was engine failure and that the plane burst into flames after hitting the ground.

The plummeting aircraft narrowly missed a series of large, fuel-laden containers that lie between the international and domestic terminals, ultimately crashing in a muddy area.

Rescue workers and fire-fighters combed through the charred and scattered fuselage, some of which was embedded in the heavy mud.

Nigerian rescue workers gather around the wreckage of an Associated Airlines plane.

The aircraft's black box had been located and handed over to aviation officials, Yakubu Dati, an aviation ministry spokesman at the scene said.

The plane was carrying the remains of ex-Ondo state governor Olusegun Agagu, who had been set for burial this weekend, Joe Obi, the aviation ministry spokesman, told AFP.

Reports were also circulating in Nigeria's media about other prominent figures who may have perished in the crash, but details could not be confirmed.

"We will make the identities of the victims public" after their families have been informed, said the aviation minister.

Associated Airlines was said to be a small domestic charter service, but company staff were not available to comment and aviation officials provided no details about the carrier.

The crash will likely serve to create further unease about air travel within Nigeria.

The accident came more than a year after a plane belonging to another domestic carrier, Dana Air, crashed following an engine failure as it approached Lagos on a flight that originated in the capital Abuja.

All the 153 people on board were killed, along with six others on the ground as the plane plunged into a densely packed residential neighbourhood, destroying a three-story building in June of last year.

The day before the Dana crash, a Nigerian-operated cargo flight slammed into a passenger vehicle on the tarmac at the main airport in Ghana's capital Accra, killing 10 people.

Nigeria vowed to clean up its domestic air industry after the Dana Air crash, promising enhanced safety checks and more rigorous standards.

The head of the civil aviation agency was fired earlier this year.

The Dana Air crash was said to have been the deadliest in Nigeria since 1992, when a military C-130 transport plane went down after takeoff in Lagos, killing around 200 people on board.

The country's domestic air industry has been mired in a state of nearly perpetual crisis, with leading carrier Air Nigeria closing operations last year following a wave of labour disputes.

Because of poor service and frequent delays on many internal flights, charter services are common, especially among the political and business elite.