Air safety: Nigeria, Africa get low rating

International commercial air travel has reached levels of safety and convenience, which would have been unimaginable just a generation ago. Although, they are almost always extremely tragic events, the lessons have played important role in the process to continue improving aviation safety.

Coming off the back of a year that saw extraordinary aviation disasters dominate world headlines, it would be hard to find good news, but data from a leading industry body shows that in 2015 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) airlines had zero jet hull losses. It was the biggest improvement of all regions, even if from a low base.

In Nigeria, much has changed in term of regulations, accident and investigations while safety seems to be placed highly on aviation in Nigeria. Even in the best of climes, accidents do happen.

Despite the tough environment, Nigeria’s aviation still ranks amongst the safest in the continent. No wonder Nigeria has continued to scale some of the toughest audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), signalling that the country’s airspace is safe. Last Friday marked the fourth year anniversary of the crash of Dana MD-93 aircraft.

The 2012 accident involving Dana in which 153 persons perished in a Lagos suburb of Iju-Ishaga and some others that happened shortly after that eroded confidence in air travel in Nigeria and by extension in Africa.

Investigations confirmed that the inability of the pilot to turn on the fuel pumps of the ill-fated Dana Air flight that crashed at a Lagos suburb on June 3, 2012, killing about 160 people, led to the failure of the two engines and the eventual crash.

The captain of the aircraft, Peter Waxtan, an American, who was already due for holiday on the day of the crash and who had his flight ticket to travel to the United States on the day of the crash, was making his last flight to Lagos from Abuja when the plane crashed, killing all on board and a few people on the ground.

Pilot error (sometimes called cockpit error) is a decision, action or inaction by a pilot or crew of an aircraft determined to be a cause or contributing factor in an accident or incident. Pilot error can be a mistake, oversight, lapse in judgment, or failure to exercise due diligence by pilots during the per-formance of their duties.

Human error is biggest obstacle to 100 per cent flight safety. Most times accidents happen not because the operating equipment is not good. There are several combinations that could lead to accidents.

The causes of pilot error are due to psychological and physiological human limitations, and various forms of threat and error management have been implemented into pilot training programmes to teach crew members how to deal with impending situations, which arise throughout the course of a flight.

A broader view of how human factors fits into a system is now considered standard practice by accident investigators when examining the chain of events that led to an accident There are many people whose first assumption – after terrorism or hijacking is discounted – when a plane is lost, that some physical part has failed catastrophically. But mechanical failures alone account for only a small proportion of airliner crashes.

The question is, has any lesson being learnt in all of these accidents, not only in Nigeria but Africa? Opinions are divided on whether or not Nigerian aviation professionals have learnt from so many mishaps that have occurred.

Some are of the view that not much lessons have been learnt, while others said that no two crashes are the same, arguing that each accident provides new strategy to ensure it does not happen again.

Experts, who spoke to New Telegraph, alleged that most of AIB’s reports hinge the causes of accidents in Nigeria on avoidable human errors and dereliction of duty by public officials working in the aviation sector as some of the major reasons for the loss of hundreds of lives in air crashes in Nigeria.

The bureau, which is saddled with the responsibility of investigating air accidents in the country stated these in its findings, conclusions, and recommendations after air crashes that occurred in 2002 and 2005 involving two airlines, Sky Executive Aviation Services (SEAS) and Sosoliso airline.

The reports, which can be found on the website of the agency, shows that if airport officials, airline operators, officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had done their jobs diligently, at least 103 lives could have been saved in those two crashes while property, including the two airplanes involved, worth hundreds of billions of naira could also have been saved.

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.

Africa’s air safety last year was better than over the five-year period 2010–2014, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported recently.

While the hull loss rate for jet airliners was down, that for turboprop airliners showed a dramatic decline. The jet hull loss rate in Africa in 2015 was 3.49 per million flights, compared with a rate of 3.69 for 2010–2014, while the turboprop hull loss rate was 4.53, compared with 18.20 for the preceding five-year period.

There were four commercial hull loss accidents in SSA last year. Two involved jets and two involved turboprops. Neither jet accident saw any fatalities, nor did one of the turboprop losses. Unfortunately, the other turboprop loss did result in fatalities.

In addition, there were two accidents involving jet aircraft in the region, which did not result in hull losses but did cause fatalities. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a runway excursion by a freighter aircraft caused eight fatalities on the ground.

Over Senegal, an airliner collided with a smaller jet serving as an air ambulance while the airliner suffered only moderate damage and nobody on-board suffered any injuries, the smaller jet disappeared (its wreckage has not yet been found) and is considered lost and all seven people on-board are presumed dead.