From the Aviation Herald…

On Jun 5th the airline stated that the aircraft had been in good condition and thus contradicted claims in Nigerian press suggesting the aircraft was not airworthy and was doing its first flight following repairs forced out of repair early by pressure of airline management. The airline explained that the aircraft was flying its regular schedule to Ibadan without any problems on Jun 2nd and on Jun 3rd flew flights 9J-999 Lagos-Abuja, 9J-998 Abuja-Lagos and 9J-993 Lagos-Abuja without any incidents prior to the illfated flight 9J-992. Later Jun 5th the airline added the captain had a total flying experience of 18,500 hours, thereof 7,100 hours on the MD-83, the first officer had a flying experience of 1,110 hours total and 800 hours on type. The aircraft had accumulated more than 35,000 cycles and 60,000 flight hours, its last A-check was completed on May 30th 2012 with the next C-check required until September 2012, the aircraft was in possession of a valid certificate of airworthiness following the previous C-check. Both black boxes have been recovered and are in possession of Nigeria’s AIB.

On Jun 7th airline officials said, that the crew was in contact with Lagos Radar when the crew reported engine trouble. They were subsequently handed off to Lagos Tower but did not report on Lagos Tower frequency anymore, two minutes after reporting the engine failure the aircraft disappeared from radar.

On Jun 10th 2012 Dana Air’s Director of Flight reported on Lagos’ TV, that the remains of one or more birds have been found in one of the engines recovered from the crash site. However, the cause of the crash is still to be determined.

BTW the captain was an American apparently.