‘How to tackle aviation infrastructure woes’
Air traffic controllers and pilots under the aegis of Air Traffic Controller Pilot Forum have listed paucity of funds and bureaucratic bottlenecks as some of the factors hampering the execution of critical aviation safety projects in Nigeria.
They, however, urged the Federal Government to establish a special intervention fund for critical aviation safety projects.
The group expressed concern that this had consistently happened despite the genuine desire from industry stakeholders towards getting critical aviation projects done in good time.
The ATC-Pilot forum disclosed this in a communiqué jointly signed by Chairman, Steering Committee, Ahmad Abba, and Secretary, Mrs. Olubunmi Balogun, after a one day interactive session with theme, “Airport Collaborative Decision Making, Capacity Development and Planning as Catalysts for Aviation Safety,” and made available to Woleshadarenews
The body lamented that despite repeated calls and observations on the need for airfield lighting controls to be placed at aerodrome control towers across the country, as it is the standard practice across the world, these controls are still in Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) airfield lighting control rooms.
They stated that the situation had adversely affected the need for light adjustment for the safe operations of aircraft, stressing that the benefits derivable from policies and projects in the aviation industry were not mostly realized due, partly, to lack of collaboration between stakeholders, investments in personnel, equipment, structures and procedures made without considering the interconnectedness of the industry.
To them, this has made projects like the Performance Based Navigation (PBN) not to be fully utilised.
Lack of modern equipment, skill and knowledge has been identified as factors militating full implementation of performance based navigation in Nigeria.
Performance-based Navigation (PBN) was introduced by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and it specifies that aircraft required navigation performance (RNP) and area navigation (RNAV) systems performance requirements be defined in terms of accuracy, integrity, availability, continuity and functionality required for the proposed operations in the context of a particular airspace, when supported by the appropriate navigation infrastructure.
In 2017, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) published PBN Area Navigation (RNAV) Approaches for 15 Nigerian airports as well as the publication of Standard Arrival Routes (STARs) and Standard Instrument Departure Routes (SIDs) for Benin Airport by the agency.
The said publication enables duly equipped aircraft with necessary approval from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to fly PBN procedures into the airports without the use of ground navigational aids.
According to the safety group, “communication both ground-ground and air-to ground is the backbone of aviation safety. The present communication network is presently epileptic, unreliable and inadequate. Air traffic controllers and pilots find it difficult to communicate in the en route phase of flights. Controllers also find it difficult to communicate with adjacent air traffic control units.
“Disruption of service as a result of maintenance or lack of it is becoming worrisome. Pilots, controllers, and other aviation users get abrupt notice of withdrawal of service without plan.”
The recently installed and calibration of Instrument Landing System (ILS) Category 3 for Lagos and Abuja, they said, required visual aids like approach lights, runway lights, runway lights, taxiway lights, runway markings and taxiway markings.
They equally called for uninterrupted power supply to the vital aids, explaining that as at now, most of these are not compatible with Category 3 ILS operations.
They were also worried about the growing threat to aviation installations at and outside the airports, with blockage of aerodrome control tower by new structures, meteorological equipment.
They added that outside the airports, communities posed threats to some of the installations, hinting that aviation personnel suffer greatly getting access to their place of work.
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