Dana Crash: 9 Bodies Yet Unidentified

Nine bodies of Dana Air crash victims have still not been identified, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, said on Thursday.

Following a closed-door meeting with family members of the crash victims, the governor told journalists that the state had recorded 94 percent success in the victims' identification process.

He said 141 out of the 150 bodies recovered from the site had been successfully identified and that further tests would be carried out on five of the remaining bodies.

Fresh samples had been taken from relatives of the five victims, leaving four bodies whose fates are yet to be decided.

While fielding questions on the four bodies, Fashola said, "we will have to decide how we will proceed because we have not been able to identify them”.

He, however, said that the identified bodies had been released to family members, and that 51 death certificates out of the 89 already issued, had also been collected by families.

Apart from discussions that bothered on the recovery of deceased's personal effects by the families, the governor said the meeting had also centred on improving the country's aviation industry.

"The families," according to him, were keen to "use the experience to reform the Aviation Sector irrevocably so that their loved ones would not have died in vain".

“It breaks one’s heart to see what they are going through," he added.

Some family members of the victims who shared their thoughts, said they had agreed to be part of a cause to engage regulators in the aviation industry, to prevent such occurrence in future.

"If there had been appropriate things on the ground on that day, there would not have been as many casualties as recorded. We would not have had the magnitude of loss because the fire that roasted the victims did not start immediately," said Onyinye Okocha, who was widowed by the crash.

Seke Somolu, another family member, commended the state government for doing “a lot more than the federal government has done", asking that the report of investigations into the cause of the crash be made public.

“The overwhelming emotion that came out of that meeting is the determination to have this kind of thing stopped."