On 29 October 2006, the Boeing 737-2B7 crashed onto a corn field shortly after take-off from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, killing 96 out of 105 people on board.

[1] The investigation of the crash, conducted by Nigeria's Accident Investigation Bureau, blamed the pilot's decision to take off in unsuitable weather as the primary cause of the crash, as presence of windshear at the time posed serious risk to the aircraft's ability to fly.

Further investigation revealed inadequate company oversights on windshear recovery training and lack of teamwork among the pilots of Flight 053.

[1][4] The Sultan of Sokoto and spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, Muhammadu Maccido, the sultan's son, Senator Badamasi Maccido, the Deputy Governor of Sokoto, Garba Muhammed,[5] the first ever female West African ENT surgeon, Dr Nnennia Mgbor, and Abdulrahman Shehu Shagari, son of former president Shehu Shagari, were on the passenger list.

[9][10] The captain was 50-year-old Charles Kolawole Atanda, and the first officer was 54-year-old Celestine Okkoneh, who had logged 8,545 and 6,497 flight hours (their experience on the Boeing 737 was not available), respectively.

The controller re-emphasized the deteriorating weather condition and gave the latest wind check, which the flight crew acknowledged.

The front and middle part were obliterated by the impact and post-crash fire that followed, while a portion of the back of the plane managed to stay intact, saving the lives of a flight attendant and 8 passengers.

The crew then pitched the nose up to between 30° and 35°, thereby greatly exceeding the critical angle of attack, activating the stick-shaker.

Flight control inputs by the crew resulted in an aerodynamic stall, altitude loss, and subsequent ground impact.

[3] There was no publicly available ground station information in Nigeria, so investigators had to analyze the weather data that they had managed to obtain from satellite imagery.

Conditions evolved from scattered low-top cumulus to an isolated convective cell with estimated tops above 45,000 feet (14,000 m) in just over an hour.

A short while later, a pilot from a nearby Virgin Nigeria Airlines stated that he would wait for the weather to improve as he said that the wind "looked like 35 knots".

[3] According to Boeing's Flight Crew Operation Manual (FCOM), in order to recover from a wind shear the crew should have applied maximum thrust, levelled the wings and pulled the aircraft's nose to an initial pitch of 15 degrees.

Analysis of the pilot's reaction, however, proved that the flight crew had not followed the correct procedures on FCOM.

Although bad weather created the situation to which the pilots reacted, their reaction was not in accordance with wind shear recovery procedure as the crews made a nose up input and didn't try to level the wings.

[3] The simulator training the crew undertook at Sabena Flight Academy in Brussels, Belgium did not adequately prepare them to handle the situation in which they found themselves, even though the aircraft appeared to have enough energy to fly through the adverse weather conditions.

[13] The Nigerian AIB finally concluded that the cause of the crash was due to pilot error, stating: The pilot's decision to take-off in known adverse weather conditions and failure to execute the proper windshear recovery procedure resulted in operating the aircraft outside the safe flight regime, causing the aircraft to stall very close to the ground from which recovery was not possible.Investigators also stated several contributing factors: The use of inappropriate equipment for windshear recovery procedure during simulator recurrency.

The coordination of responsibilities and duties between the pilot flying and pilot not flying during their encounter with the adverse weather was inconsistent with Standard Operating Procedures resulting in the inadequate control of the aircraft.Consequently, the AIB noted that the radar in the airport was off at the time of the accident.

[4] The previous crash involving ADC happened on 7 November 1996; 144 people were killed when a Boeing 727 went down near Ejirin, losing control after taking evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision.

[14] In response to the death of Muhammadu Maccido, the spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims, the government of Sokoto declared six days of mourning.

[15] BBC reported that the town of Sokoto "feels like a graveyard" as shops, offices and markets were closed and thousands of people, including people from Chad, Niger, Mali and Senegal, had gathered in front of Sokoto's Sultan Palace Hall to pay respect to Sultan Muhammadu Maccido.

[18] One day after the crash, Minister of Aviation Babalola Borishade was heard criticizing the pilot of Flight 053, Captain Atanda, and accused him of ignoring bad weather warnings.

During the hearing, members of parliament asked Minister Borishade to resign in response to the nation's poor aviation safety following multiple aircraft accidents in the past two years.

[22] Since the start of the tenure of the Director-General of NCAA Harold Demuren, there had been no more major passenger airliner crashes in Nigeria for years.