Ime Akpan
In 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote: “It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.”
The commissioner and chief executive officer of the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Mr. Akin Olateru might have been confronted by the scenario espoused in the quote above by Machiavelli, Italian Renaissance historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer who, for many years was a senior official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs.
He chose not to conform to the status quo; he never wanted to be mentioned in the history book of men who became complacent and with this-is-the-way-we-have-always-done-it syndrome.
Appointed as commissioner and chief executive officer of AIB in January 2017, Olateru had to ‘overthrow’ the old order by calling for the accident reports that had gathered dust in the shelves.
That bold step resulted in the release of a total of 27 final reports (including several outstanding accident/incident reports), that is, some 58.7 per cent of AIB’s total of 46 final reports released since inception in 2007.
Besides, a total of 97 safety recommendations have been issued in these reports accounting for 54.5 per cent of the total 178 recommendations issued since the inception of AIB.
He said the release of final accident and serious incident reports “is in line with our promise…that the outstanding occurrence reports would be cleared swiftly even as new accident investigation reports will be released without delay.”
Having cleared the old table, he set a new template for the agency to make it “more committed to swift response to incident and accident notifications through our well equipped command and control centre.”
He launched a mobile app to “interface with the public and make it easy for them to communicate with AIB digitally, thereby simplifying the process of accident reporting.”
“It is our core mandate to investigate occurrences in relation to air transportation and to make an accurate determination, in order to prevent their recurrence and to mitigate any undesirable after effects. We cannot and must not, therefore, rest on our laurels,” he said.
Human capacity
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” wrote American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014).
How does a leader inspire confidence and trust? A leader’s actions and behaviour is always monitored and discussed among his subordinates. If you are going to talk the talk, be prepared to walk the walk.
On assumption of office, Olateru said his vision was to make AIB the biggest in the nation’s aviation industry and enjoined the staff to ‘let bygones be bygones’ for “this is a new dawn” where the “drive for excellence, investment in personnel development and welfare will continue to be a priority,” and in the end “we are all going to be happy because everyone will go on training and more opportunities would be given to people.”
He believes that “building institutions is not just about buying equipment, throwing money at people; it is about giving them the right exposure, which goes a long way.”
To walk the talk, the commissioner invited personnel from Singapore and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to train AIB’s technical personnel on the use of flight safety laboratory as well as evaluate the laboratory prior to its update.
The choice of Singaporean personnel was because the Asian country has the same equipment.
“We wrote to Singapore because they have the same equipment as ours and graciously, they have agreed to support us with the required manpower and training,” he said.
On the heels of that was the collaboration between AIB on the one hand and the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and ICAO on the other in training 18 AIB staff who were recruited in 2013 but were not trained.
Besides, 22 staff of the agency were sent to the United State for on-the-job-training in accident investigation at NTSB.
The training did not end with AIB personnel only because when an accident occurs, several agencies including the Nigerian Police Force, Air Force, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), among others are involved in search and rescue operations.
Their engagement at crash sites, besides search and rescue is to prevent intruders from tampering with evidence that would aid successful accident investigation findings.
To sharpen their knowledge, AIB assembled over 400 first responders to aircraft accident sites with participants drawn from the Nigeria Police and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).
Journalists have not been left out in the training as AIB, in collaboration with the Southern California Safety Institute (SCSI) conducted a one-week training on Accident Investigation Management for members of the League of Airport & Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) in 2019
The intensive training, conducted by the president of SCSI and lead aircraft accident investigator, Mr. Matthew Robinson was aimed at deepening the knowledge of the participants and taking the journalists to the basics of accident investigation and how to go beyond waiting for information from Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) in cases of accident.
Olateru’s focus on human capacity development has ensured that the bureau’s Flight Safety Laboratory is equipped, its software upgraded to the latest technology which allows it to simulate animations based on data from the Flight Data Recorders (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).
Offshore engagements
AIB, under Olateru, has invested massively in human capacity development and it is the commissioner’s “joy to share this with the aviation industry in Africa and the world.”
While the agency has over 30 well-trained air accident investigators, the entire West African sub-region has less than that number.
Little wonder ICAO appointed one of AIB’s safety investigators, Mr. Charles Irikefe Erhueh, as the new commissioner of the Banjul Accord Group Accident Investigation Agency (BAGAIA).
Erhueh was appointed after a thorough recruitment process in which applicants from within and outside the member states applied for the advertised position.
With the repositioning of the AIB, BAGAIA invited the bureau to conduct an investigation into the accident involving Cavok Airlines CVK 7087 AN-74TK-100 aircraft registered Ur-CKC, which occurred at Sao Tome International Airport, Sao Tome on July 29, 2017.
By the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Annex 13, accident investigation is the responsibility of the state of occurrence.
It was the first time that AIB would carry out such assignment on behalf of another country or regional body.
Collaborations
AIB has signed MoUs with many countries that believe in what the agency is doing and want it to work with them and share experience.
At the last count, the agency had signed MoU with France, Benin Republic, Sao Tome and Principe.
Discussions are in the works with South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Gabon.
The Republic of Benin wants AIB to help them whenever an accident occurs; they also want the agency to train their personnel.
It assisted The Gambia to set up accident investigation agency. It also helped the West African country write its Civil Aviation Act which has been passed by the parliament.
Besides, the commissioner initiated collaboration and cooperation agreements with NTSB, Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB).
On the domestic scene, academic institutions and other organisations in the country are going to save billions of naira annually on research and capital flight from the use of AIB’s metallurgical laboratory at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja.
Hence, the agency signed MoU with the University of Ilorin and the University of Lagos for the use of the laboratory.
Olateru said the vision of the management is to make the laboratory a world class facility where giant construction companies and countries like South Africa, United Kingdom and other European nations could come to conduct their researches.
With the collaboration, he said the international community will recognize Nigeria as a serious nation in research, improve human capital development in the country while the laboratory would also give students more opportunity to practice whatever they learn in the classrooms.
“I believe we can make this country great with collaborations. We need collaborations like this to help us add values to the country.
“The direction of research now is about collaborations and networking. Our intention is to make our students known locally and visible at the global stage and I am happy we are achieving that so far. On our own, we will give this collaboration 100 per cent support it deserves.
“Nigeria has a lot to gain through this partnership because Nigerians go to every part of the world for research purposes. We still send materials to overseas when we are doing some research work. Our facilities still require improvement and this is a good facility for us and we are taking good opportunity of this,” the commissioner remarked.
Commendations
Commenting on Olateru’s three-year scorecard, foremost aviation consultant and analyst, Group Capt. John Ojikutu said the AIB had performed better than his predecessors.
He said emphatically that in the annals of the bureau, accident and serious incident reports were hitherto not released in process or standards approved or recommended by ICAO Annex 13, as has been done since 2017 when Olateru mounted the saddle.
“He has released more accident reports than any of his predecessors and more than the previous three combined.
“In addition, he has ensured the release of safety recommendations of over 80 per cent of more than 150, arising from the accidents and serious incidents that had occurred in more 20 years in the country, which he met on assumption into office.
“He has projected the image of the agency beyond the shore of Nigeria so much so that its services are being sort after by countries in the sub-region. Cape Verde is just one of the countries that requested for the services of one the agency’s inspectors, which was deployed to that country towards the end of last year,” said Ojikutu in an interview with Independent.
He added that AIB under Olateru has demonstrated that it has the most efficient and forward looking approach in the development and growth of Nigeria’s civil aviation.
For his part, the director of research at Zenith Travels, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, saluted Olateru for making some tremendous strides since he assumed office and charged him not to relent in his performance.
Like Ojikutu, he said Olateru had ensured timely release of accident and incident reports; positioned the agency to have regional relevance and collaborated with international agencies to create a global importance for AIB.
However, Ohunayo urged the commissioner to ensure the fruition of the proposed multi-modal investigation well as continental relevance of the bureau.
More so, he charged him to collaborate with some other global accident investigation bureaus of repute; improve on the quality of training for its technical staff and motivate the staff with enhanced welfare package.
The managing director of NTSB, Mr. Dennis Jones also applauded AIB for having a robust accident investigation programme compared to other investigation agencies in Africa.
“I would say that I have been in over 30 countries in Africa on accident investigation; Nigeria’s AIB has a robust programme. I have been in workshops around the region; we actually invited Nigerian accident investigators to come, teach others, and show others about the programme here in Nigeria. In many ways, it has been an exemplary programme for accident investigation for other regions,” said Jones.
Accolades
Year 2019 was one of the defining moments in Olateru’s career as organisations, within and outside Nigeria, sought out this outstanding aviation personality to confer honours on.
In recognition of his exceptional contributions to the promotion of positive image of Africa and Africans around the world through aviation, the Gathering of Africa’s Best (GAB) bestowed an Award for Excellence to the commissioner at its 21st GAB Awards ceremony held on December 15, 2019 in London.
The Commissioner was also bestowed with the Aviation Man of the Year 2019 Award at the Air Transport Industry Awards as well as Outstanding Leadership Award at the 10th Nigeria Aviation (NIGAV) awards 2019.
In the beginning
Olateru, an aircraft maintenance engineer with Nigerian, UK and USA licences, began his career in engineering maintenance with Pan African Airlines and the Nigeria Police Air Wing from where he left for further studies overseas.
In the course of his studies, he served European aero firms including KLM, Martin Air, Holland, British Aerospace Engineering UK and British Midland Airways.
He returned to Nigeria in 2003 and with an M.SC in Air Transport Management from the City University, London where among other specialisations he studied and made in-depth research into accident investigations at post graduate level.
The AIB commissioner had earlier worked with Skypower Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL) prior to its privatization.
He served the organisation variously as head of safety and quality assurance; group head, operations, marketing and business development.
A multi-talented and resourceful aviation professional who has traversed the aviation industry for over 30 years, Olateru has strategically built his career in aircraft engineering, maintenance, ground handling, and passenger and cargo operations in the air transport sector.
Blessed with excellent faculties and a Midas touch, ‘Daniel’ Olateru has brought his judgement to bear in AIB and the agency is happier for it.
