Planes would continue to crash in Nigeria, unless… – Capt Daniel

The effort by the Federal Government to stop plane crashes in the country was punctured last Sunday when a DANA airline crashes. Why did this happen? I don’t agree with you. If you noticed, in the past six years, we haven’t recorded any severe plane crash. Since the current head of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority […]

The effort by the Federal Government to stop plane crashes in the country was punctured last Sunday when a DANA airline crashes. Why did this happen?

I don’t agree with you. If you noticed, in the past six years, we haven’t recorded any severe plane crash. Since the current head of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) came on board things have changed for the better. The regulation is more stringent now; operators cannot play or manipulate maintenance. You must do it well. I think government, in this area, has done very well and the safety has improved. That’s why we were able to achieve the Category A status. What do I mean by this? The United States safety agency has now recognised Nigeria’s regulatory agencies as vibrant and, therefore, planes can now fly from here in Nigeria to the US. The NCAA has done well. The only problem is that you can never by 100 per cent prevent accidents.  What you can only do is to limit its occurrence and frequency. Aircraft accidents can be caused by either human or mechanical error. Human error accounts for nearly 70 percent of aircraft accidents in the world. This is because aircraft these days are manufactured with so many backup systems to enhance their reliability. The next thing we are dealing with is the human factor.

As an expert, what do you think could have been responsible for the DANA plane crash. Was it a mechanical or human error?

This is where the problem is. You can never know the cause of an accident until it is investigated and this is where I’m holding government accountable because in 2005 and 2006 we had plane crashes. Do you know up till to today the reports of the accidents have not been officially released to enable stakeholders in the sector know the causes of the accidents so that we can learn from the mistakes? This is where the problem is. If government continues to delay reports, accident will keep on happening. If you don’t come out with the report, especially to the stakeholders: pilots, NCAA, Engineers, operators and the public, there is no way you can prevent accidents. This is why we are having problems in the sector today.

Reports had it that the aircraft was faulty and the operators of airline were aware?

I don’t speculate because this is the biggest mistake Nigerians are making. There is no way you can know the cause of an air accident without investigation being carried out. Look, you cannot go with eyewitness account. In aviation, you don’t speculate. You’ve to go with precision. So without investigation, there is no way I can speculate what happened. The pilot flying that aircraft had 7,500 hours on the aircraft. That means he has been on the aircraft for approximately eight to nine years flying the same airplane. So the pilot cannot just wake up and say he wants to kill himself. People are only speculating. Nobody can tell you the exact cause of the accident. You will be surprised to hear the cause of the crash after investigation is conducted. If anybody comes out and says this was the exact cause of the accident that person is a liar. People are trying to politicise the crash and this is one thing we must not do. If you don’t have a systematic process of investigating accidents, you can’t know the causes. The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) should come out with its own report. The government, on its own, should expedite the report of the accident because we want to prevent future accidents, another plane crash can happen tomorrow. If you have backlog of reports and pilots, engineers and others are not abreast of what happened, how would they prevent future occurrences. Reports must come out because we must know the causes of accidents to prevent future occurrences. The government must also look at the basic standard of compensation to families of plane crash victims. Globally, the basic amount to family of victims of plane crash is $140,000 and after that the individual can sue the owner or the airline operator. Ninety percent of those who fly our airlines are breadwinners. Government should allow airline operators to add N1,000 to  airfare, for insurance, so that when there is plane crash, family of victims can get, at least, N70 million. Government must devise a means to adequately cater for families of plane crash victims. We are not telling government to give children of victims’ scholarship, which is nothing. We must put that in place now. We don’t have to wait until another accident. What we want is for the government to do this now. Also, our rescue system is too poor.  When the DANA plane crashed, there were so many policemen there, yet people were busy stealing, looting the belongings of the victims, like handsets.

Why is government hiding the report of previous investigations into crashes?

It is because of politics. How can you tell me that you cannot come out with the report of Sosoliso or Belview crashes; that they are still waiting for government’s directive before the release of the reports? After the accident, government set up Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB).  This organisation is not answereable to the ministry, but to the president directly. Then, how are we going to prevent accidents? This is the only country where a plane will crash and nothing is heard about it after few months. The ADC crashed into the lagoon and up till today, the aircraft has not been removed. Then, how can you prevent air accidents?

How would you react to the calls for the sack of the NCAA boss over the DANA plane crash?

The sack of these people is not the solution. You don’t need an aviation expert to be the aviation minister. What she needs is to have sound people around her and that is what the minister has done. Seventy per cent of aircraft accidents are caused by human errors because aircraft are manufactured now to withstand a lot of things. They have many backup systems inbuilt. The age of the aircraft does not matter. What matters most in the industry is routine maintenance; an airplane can fly for 50 years.