The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) has attributed the rarity of civil aircraft crashes in Nigeria to its quality probes into air accidents, serious incidents and timely release of safety reports of such occurrences.
The director general of the agency, Mr Akin Olateru, stated this yesterday in the paper he presented at Aviation Africa Summit 2023 held in Abuja.
The director general who spoke on ‘Nigeria evolving approach to aviation safety and learning from occurrence investigation’ said in the last 10 years, Olateru said Nigeria’s airspace recorded only two fatal aircraft accidents which resulted in nine deaths.
He stated that Nigeria has the safest safety record globally adding that the country is now force to reckon with in the aviation sector.
Besides, he said there has been a downward trend from fatal accident to accident and now to serious incidents in civil aviation in Nigeria.
“In the last four years, Nigeria had only one accident per year in terms of classification,” Olateru said.
He recalled the Bristow Helicopters crash of 2015 and Quorum Helicopters accident of 2019 as the only two occurrences in which fatalities were so far recorded within the period.
He said Nigeria has had more incidents than accidents in civil aviation adding 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 reduced.
Olateru 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 exercise is meant to monitor their implementation through the setting up of committees which would be launched in 2024.
The NSIB chief clarified that it was not going to be the first the bureau would embark on such initiative, stressing that it organised a similar programme in 2020.
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.
Olateru further said the agency had generally through the development of mechanism for early reporting of occurrence, identifying and improving personnel 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.
“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.
