There are indications that the Dana Air MC Donnell Douglas MD 83 which crashed around Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos ,yesterdayhas a history of worrying defaults even before original owners, US-based Alaska Airlines sold it to Dana Airlines on February 17, 2009.
According to the information from Aviation Safety Network, an exclusive service of the Air safety Foundation, the ill-fated aircraft wasacquired by Alaska Airline in November 13, 1990 with registrationnumber N944AS.
However, on November 4, 2002 the aircraft developed fault and had emergency diversion due to smoke and electrical smell in the cabin area,which engineers said was because light ballast had over heated.
Four years after, the aircraft’s health was also called to question when on August 20, 2006, it was again evacuated after landing at the Long Beach, CA due to a chaffed wirebundle that discharged and produced smoke in the cabin area again.
Apparently scared that the worst could happen, Alaska Airlines was said to have on August 21 parked theaircraft at Victorville until September 11 2008 when it carried out maintenance on it.
Eventually on February 2009 Alaska Airlines shifted the burden to Nigeria when it sold the ill-fated plane as 5N-RAM. The MD-83 was manufactured in 1983, announced go-ahead on January 31, 1983 and had first flight on December 17, 1984
It was a longer range development of the basic MD-81/82 with higher weights, more powerful engines, increased fuel capacity and longer range. It was equipped with slightlymore powerful 21,000 1bf (93 kN) Pratt and Whitney JT8D-219s as standard.
The aircraft also had higher operating weights with MTOW increased to 160,000 1b and MLW to 139,500 1b. Typical range for the MD-83 with 155 passengers in around 2,504 nautical miles (4,637km).