Senate invites Aviation minister Sirika, others over air mishaps

The Senate, on Tuesday, invited the Minister of State for Aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, to brief it on steps taken by the Federal Government to minimise air mishaps in the aviation sector of the country.

Beside Sirika, who is expected to appear before the Senate at a yet-to-be announced date in plenary, the Red Chamber also invited heads of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) and every other relevant agency in the aviation industry to give a full briefing on the steps that have been taken to minimise human errors and avoid preventable air crashes.!

The decision of the Senate, followed the adoption of a motion on “The need to minimise the possibility of Air Mishaps and Near Fatalities in Nigeria,” sponsored by Gbenga Ashafa and eight other senators.

Ashafa in his lead debate prayed the Senate to observe that on the 20th of February, 2018 the story of a near fatal incident involving Dana Airlines with number 9J0363 hit the news waves.

He noted that it was reported that the aircraft overshot the runway upon landing at the Port Harcourt Airport, on a flight from Abuja, and that the incident was attributed to the wet surface of the runway

Ashafa recalled that “just a few weeks before the afore stated event, there was also panic on Wednesday, 7th of February, 2018, when the emergency door of an aircraft conveying passengers to Abuja fell off upon landing at the Nnamdi Azikiwe, International Airport in Abuja.”

The Lagos East lawmaker said that he is aware that while the said aircraft was cleared to return to service on the same day by the relevant authorities the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), “an experienced pilot interviewed was of the opinion that the aircraft might have experienced a component failure.”

He noted that reports quoted the pilot to have said “what happened is likely to be a component failure due to hand landing. It couldn’t have fallen off when the aircraft was airborne because the aircraft cabin is pressurised. It is very difficult for that to happen but it could fall off when the aircraft is on the ground.”

He expressed concern that “these recent occurrences might be a sign of a sequence of human errors, caused by the failure of officials and staff of the agencies saddled with the responsibility of guaranteeing safety to carry out their due diligence before issuing clearance for aircrafts to operate within the Nigerian airspace.”

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Ashafa further recalled with sadness that Nigeria has experienced a significant number of air catastrophes that cost the lives of hundreds of Nigerians, due to a range of causes including human and technical error.

He said that a chronicle of air mishaps caused by human error as reported in an article titled: Human errors, dereliction of duty are major causes of plane crashes in Nigeria, stated as follows: ”Avoidable human errors and dereliction of duty by public officials working in the aviation sector have been major reasons for the loss of hundreds of lives in air crashes in Nigeria, reports by the Aviation Investigation Bureau (AIB) have shown.”

The report, he said, stated further that: ”Some of the human errors identified by AIB as causes of the plane crashes include non-lightening of runways and airfields, poorly constructed drainage culverts, inaccurate information by the control tower, lack of proper certification of radio operators and poor supervision of aircraft imported into the country.”

He stated with concern that “it is against this backdrop that it has now become imperative to move with speed and alacrity in order to ensure that all relevant agencies in the Aviation industry do their work with excellence and minimal human error in order to prevent avoidable loss of human lives.”

All senators who contributed to the motion agreed that urgent steps should be taken to fix the aviation section in the interest of the flying public.

By Ehisuan Odia…

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