Chinedu Eze
The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) has said that its efficient investigations into air accidents, serious incidents, subsequent recommendations and timely release of safety reports have contributed immensely in the improvement of air safety in the country.
The bureau said that in the last 10 years, Nigeria’s airspace had only recorded two fatal civil air crashes, leading to the unfortunate loss of nine souls within the period.
The Director General, NSIB, Akin Olateru, stated this at the weekend in Abuja during his paper presentation at the Aviation Africa Summit 2023.
Speaking on the topic: ‘Nigeria Evolving Approach to Aviation Safety and Learning from Occurrence Investigation’, Olateru said that Nigeria has one of the highest safety records in the world, stressing that the country was now a force to reckon with in the sector.
He also pointed out that there was a downward trend from fatal accidents and improved civil occurrences currently in Nigeria, saying: “In the last four years, Nigeria had only one accident per year in terms of classification.”
He mentioned Bristow Helicopters crash of 2015 and Quorum Helicopters accident of 2019 as the only two civil occurrences in which fatalities were so far recorded within the period.
Olateru, who maintained that Nigeria witnesses more incidents than accidents in the civil air mishaps these days, added that through the enhancement of soft systems being deployed in the conduct of probes into civil aviation occurrences and timely release of reports, the number of serious incidents would be reduced significantly.
He also announced the plans by the bureau, in collaboration with the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), to review and measure the effectiveness of all safety recommendations that had been issued over the years.
He said the purpose of this was to monitor their implementation through the setting up of committees, stressing that this would be unveiled in 2024.
The NSIB boss clarified that this was not the first time the bureau would embark on such initiative, stressing that the bureau in 2020 under his leadership organised similar programme.
He also unveiled the plans by the bureau to make an arrangement through the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development, NCAA and relevant stakeholders to bring both local and foreign insurance firms for deliberation in order to address the issue of insurance premium of airlines in Nigeria in 2024.
The NSIB boss further explained that the agency had generally through the development of mechanism for early reporting of occurrence, identifying and improving personnel’s technical skills, training of first responders on what to do at the occurrence sites, keeping a database for analysis to identify trends and patterns became evolving approach of the bureau that had guaranteed a safer airspace in Nigeria and beyond.
He added: “It is necessary to engage stakeholders in the industry and the public on the need to report occurrences as they happen or you become aware of them through mandatory and voluntary reporting.”
This, according to him, formed part of the evolving approach of the bureau that led to a safer sky over Nigeria.
The Aviation Africa Summit 2023, which was the first to be held in the West African sub-region, had about 1,500 participants from 75 countries.
