This weekend air crash in Lagos involving Dana Airlines has once again brought to the fore questions about air travel safety in Nigeria. It was with horror and reverberating gloom that we witnessed our citizens; brothers and sisters wives, fathers and our babies’ lives snuffed out in one fell swoop by this ill-fated Dana airline air craft.
I offer my heart-felt condolences to all those who have lost loved ones and relatives. Many families have had their lives and expectations thrust into the wild as they have lost their breed winners; the country has lost a critical mass of its best human resources. It appears that this loss could have been avoidable if someone somewhere did the right thing. If people we had entrusted to make right decisions for the industry had done their jobs. Indeed, we are all victims as a nation. We owe the dead and the living the right to know what could have lead to this tragic event. We owe it to our country to make sure we avoid the repeat of this mindless recklessness. It is time to give more value to the life of a Nigerian citizen.
As a country we need to be seen to be dotting our (i)s and crossing our (t)s. Since the year 2000 Nigeria has suffered about 23 fatal air crashes. Nigeria by this statistics has one of the highest rates of air crashes in the world. Yet our air traffic is not the highest in the world.
While, air crashes are a global phenomenal, the rate as which it reoccurs indicates the presence of regulatory failure of significant proportion. Without delving into the causal factors that may be responsible for the present crash, we cannot avoid asking some pertinent questions into the events of the past, which could help point, us in the right direction as to where we are getting it wrong:
There has ben several air crash investigation reports in the past on several accidents involving our local airlines, from 5N-AXL Sky Power Express Airlines to ADC Airlines and Wings Aviation, what has happened to this reports and why are these reports not made public?
How has the NCAA and other regulators of the industry used the reports emanating from these investigations to improve on the regulation and safety of the industry?
To what extent has the recommendations in this reports been implemented?
Those implicated for negligence or dereliction of duty by these reports, have they been sanctioned and how has their sanctions been dealt with?
We gather that the NCAA and FAAN receive numerous complaints from the public on some unwholesome practices of airlines from members of the public how does it deal with these complaints (there may be need to look closely at the practice by the regulators)? How does the regulator(s) deal with these petitions and reports from the public and communicate with the affected individuals?
The Senate investigations should seek to unravel the regulatory issues that may have played a role in this air crash by making sure that professional investigators properly investigate it and the public is carried along with the findings such that no aspect of the investigation is shrouded in secrecy. This is a matter of utmost importance.
GENERAL COMMENTS ON REGULATORY FAILURE ACROSS BOARD
It would appear that our regulators have turned their objective upside down. And generally there is a looming danger that our regulators now see their jobs as just revenue shops of government. There is failure to maintain any reasonable standards across board; everywhere you go standards are falling; the standards expected of professional bodies like medical professionals, security professionals, law professional, teaching, airline pilots etc. but these are vital institutions that hold very important place in the cohesion and survival of our society and indeed any society in the world.
Take for instance, a 2009 study done for the World Bank concluded that our aviation authority may have spent more than 90 percent of its budget on salaries and cannot fund training or equipment needs. The authority “is still struggling to enforce quality, safety, and security standards on federal agencies operating Nigeria’s airport and airspace systems,” the study said.
Poor oversight and regulation of the industry is one of the probable cause of some of the deadly jetliner crashes in Nigeria, a new investigation reported by the Association Press news wire has found.
Among the findings is that the technical report of the several crashes in 2005-2006 including one in which a planeload of children going home for Christmas were killed are yet to be formally release.
The records obtained by The Associated Press show that the captain of another Nigerian flight that crashed had gone back to work as a pilot despite being shot in the head years before.
In another case, a pilots’ manual included blank pages instead of key safety information. And there is no information by the regulators about how these incidences and past lapses have been dealt with and how its new regulations if nay have been developed to ensure the safety and integrity of the system and the industry especially in terms of measures to improve on safety and training.
Engine failure
An engine may fail to function because of mechanical failure due to metal fatigue mechanical failure due to improper maintenance.
In the case of a multi-engine aircraft, failure of a single engine usually results in a precautionary landing being performed, some reports have suggested that this aircraft was flying with a single engine could this have been the reason for the crash? We are yet to ascertain. But the pertinent question is the regulatory responsibility on aircraft certification to fly, rigorous preflight inspection and test procedures for aircrafts prior to flying?
If this issue had come to fore how was it dealt with by the regulator and how much power did it have to ensure its directives are obeyed to the letter?
MARKET DEMAND
With over 16m air passengers as at 2011, the Nigeria commercial aviation industry has grown but it appears that the regulatory framework is not catching up with the impact and expectations of such increase in air travels which is as a result of the growing middle, business expediency and the need to avoid our bad roads which has become death traps.
Another core issue is the issue of pilot training and safety regulation
The overarching issue is the over reliance on automation to fly aircraft. This is again about how automation is misused, and how this has degraded the value managements of airlines place on the physical flying skills of pilots and their training in recovering ‘upsets’ or full or partial loss of control in airliners.
Pilot ability may have been a factor in some of our air crashes as investigation has shown. E.g. the Dec. 10, 2005 crash of a Sosoliso Airlines flight full of schoolchildren from Abuja to Port Harcourt, which killed 107 people, appears to have involved both pilot error and weather.
The pilot was “reportedly racing a thunderstorm” nearing the airport, an FAA memo reads. The inclement weather also forced the pilot to make an instrument landing — meaning that visibility had been reduced to the point the pilot needed to rely on instruments to make his landing, the report read. The plane crash landed on the grass alongside the runway, broke apart and caught fire.
Another incident — an Oct. 29, 2006 Aviation Development Co. flight from Abuja to Sokoto — killed 96 people, including the top spiritual leader for the nation’s Muslims. The plane crashed 76 seconds after going airborne.
Just before the crash, alarms began sounding in the cockpit and the pilots’ incorrect actions stalled the plane, according to the report.
“Although bad weather may have created the situation, which the pilots reacted to, they reacted inappropriately,” the report reads.
Even more disturbing for investigators was the airline’s operation manual for pilots and cockpit staff, which “did not contain any information on adverse weather condition as that section was blank.”- the manual in question was duly approved by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority despite containing the blank section.
Recently we received with pride the news that Nigeria now has full radar coverage of the entire country. This is still good news. But I wonder how efficient a full radar coverage can be efficient with what is happening especially with our electricity situation in the country and the constant report of outages at the nations airports (including the international airports) it is hard to see how these systems are efficiently deployed and how we can conveniently say that air travel in Nigeria is safe?
Another is the issue of airworthiness of aircrafts as an important issue for the renewal of license. Have this yardstick been a good determinant of the renewal of license or has other values that are inordinate replaced this level of assessment?