Furore over execution of AIB’s safety guide
Of what use is accident reports if safety recommendations are not going to be implemented? WOLE SHADARE x-rays some of the bottlenecks that have led to a spat between Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) over safety related matters
Engines for change
For months, the controversy had centred on the propriety of implementing safety recommendations of Accident Investigation Bureau after an accident occurs. For clarity, Nigeria’s AIB is an agency saddled with the responsibility of investigating accidents and serious incidents in the country’s aviation industry.
Safety recommendations in the transportation industry are the engines that drive needed changes.
When an accident or an incident occurs, the resulting investigation will attempt to find out what happened and why. But that should only be one step in the process to implement changes so that a similar accident or incident does not occur.
The recommendations that are generated as a result of any investigation are the most important products that come from any investigation. They are the fruits of the labour of the investigating agency and its investigators.
The recommendations provide a game plan for addressing the safety deficiencies found during an investigation. When safety recommendations are widely disseminated and implemented, safety will actually improve.
The multiple safety recommendations issued by AIB lately have recorded impressive rate of implementation by concerned agencies in the local aviation industry.
Many of the recommendations had been implemented while many others are lying fallow; a situation that has led to face-off between AIB and particularly the aviation regulatory body.
The development worries stakeholders, who now raise questions on the industry’s priority to safety via prevention of incidences and their recurrence
Divergent views
No other place was the controversy of implementation of AIB’s safety recommendation made public than at a the third quarter Quarterly Business Breakfast Meeting (BBM) by the Aviation Safety Round Table (ASRTI) in Lagos with the theme: ‘Advantages of Implementing AIB Recommendations.
The panel was rich, made up of former directors general of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA), Fidelis Onyeyiri, an angineer and Dr. Harold Demuren, a former Commissioner, AIB, Dr. Sam Oduselu, for Managing Director of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, (NAMA), Mr. Nnamdi Udoh.
Others were current Director-General, NCAA, Capt, Usman Muhtar, who was represented, AIB Commissioner, Akin Olateru, an aircraft engineer was represented by spokesman for the agency, Mr. Tunji Oketunbi, among others with reservoir of aviation knowledge.
Demuren threw the first salvo. He explained that it was not compulsory that all the recommendations of AIB must be implemented by the aviation regulatory body.
He disclosed that the implementation policies were not entirely successfully carried out, due to the fact that most of the policies had some unattainable implementation process.
He reiterated that the role of AIB was to determine probable cause of accidents, adding that AIB like the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have no legal authority to impose recommendations.
“It is not every case they accept to work together. The regulators must evaluate it and it is a risk based approach.
“When you look at the risk or cost, they may not implement it. They may defer it. NTSB has made over a thousand recommendations but some gaps are yet to be closed while 82 per cent have been closed,” he added.
Demuren further stated that the focus should not be about the number of recommendation made but the quality of the recommendations.
He reiterated that those that were not implemented, they gave reasons why they could not be implemented because of the risks associated with the recommendations.
Fear factor
On his part, Oduselu recalled that in the last one or two years, the sectors had some incidents, which raised fears on aviation safety among the industry stakeholders.
He listed the advantages of implementation of AIB’s safety recommendations to include promotion of aviation safety, adding that AIB was uniquely positioned to understand the state of the industry’s health as airlines and all agencies including the regulatory body come under its periscope during accident investigations.
Explaining that the accident investigative agency does not have the power to enforce the implementation of its recommendations, he noted that the practice was that it collaborates with NCAA, which is the regulating agency for the country.
“It directs all requests and recommendations to the NCAA which in turn injects it into the industry. AIB cannot enforce but it monitors to ensure that as its reports go to the affected agencies and it collaborates with them to ensure adequate implementation in the industry,“ he noted.
Sensitisation
He equally stated that the duty of AIB apart from accident investigation was to sensitise stakeholders on the need to ensure safety within the industry through its reports, stressing that when he was in AIB as pioneer Commissioner/CEO, people would ask him, “What do you do when there is no accident?”
“And I would explain that we sensitize stakeholders on the need for safety with the strict implementation of accident reports through symposiums and seminars.
“Let me emphasise here that the purpose of accident investigation is to prevent future accidents. Apart from investigating accidents and serious incidents, AIB also come up with air data and conduct studies to uncover trends and traps in the system that could impair safety,“ he added.
Not a few are of the view that one of the major advantages of implementing the safety recommendation of AIB is the prevention of accidents and incidents.
There is a great need for strict adherence to the implementation of the safety recommendations contained in the reports on the air accidents by all stake holders.
This is because accident investigation is a pain-staking research work which follows a whole process involving the gathering and analysis of information, the drawing of conclusions after the determination of the causes and come up with safety recommendations. An accident investigation can take between 12 months and 24 months depending on several factors.
AIB Chief, Olateru, said the timely release of reports, implementation of recommendations and safety impact assessment were necessary to further enhance safety, especially in relation to recent near-mishap incidences seen in the local sector.
Olateru said safety recommendations were as critical as the investigation itself, as it is the lever used to effect safety changes and improvements in the aviation industry.
Plaudits for AIB
Industry stakeholders, who commended the new lease of life at AIB, also urged other concerned parties to do more to complement efforts of the investigation bureau.
President of Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), Dr. Gabriel Olowo, reiterated that the essence of the safety recommendations was to prevent recurrence.
Olowo, however, noted that most of the safety recommendations were not implemented by some of the major regulatory agencies, “therefore, making recurrence of such occurrence inevitable.”
“You need to look at the totality of all these things. But the CAA should be able to tell us their constraints. Most of the accidents, we have strong evidence that they have to do with human errors and once this is the case, nothing should stop us from implementing them,” Olowo said.
Last line
It is the general belief in the aviation sector that a well conducted investigation would identify the immediate and remote systemic causes of an accident and that the appropriate recommendations made by the investigating body should be acted upon without any bureaucratic delays, which may result in holding up the safety gains that should be achieved to prevent future occurrence of similar incidents.
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