A team of accident investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States have arrived Nigeria and will be aiding in the investigation of Dana Air’s McDonnell Douglas MD83 plane crash in Lagos last Sunday.

Said to be the worst air disasters in two decades, the disastrous crash of flight 992 claimed the lives of all 153 passengers on board and at least six more people on ground at the densely populated Iju Ishaga area in Lagos.

The Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, Accident Investigation Bureau, Capt. Muktar Usman, hinted the presences of the foreign investigators during a press briefing at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, reports said.

The team, led by Senior Accident Investigator, Mr. Dennis Jones, will join Nigerian investigators to analyse evidence obtained from the crash site in hopes of finding out what went wrong on that black Sunday.

The AIB chief said the analysis was the second stage of the investigation process, adding that the agency would later move to the third stage, which involved safety recommendation.

He said, “Accident investigation is a process; it is technical, factual, science-based and it is international in nature. We will go through the process. We have already started.

“We have done the on-site accident investigation and gathering of evidence from the crash site. The next stage is the analysis of evidence, and then we will make safety recommendations to prevent future occurrences.”

He said, “In this Dana crash, we have recovered the flight recorders popularly known as black boxes. They have been inside the fire for 24 hours before their discovery at the crash site. We are hoping that it will contain useful information that will make us to arrive at a conclusion, very good safety recommendations to prevent future occurrences.”