Weekend plane crashes: Coincidence or lax regulation?

 

Last Saturday Nigerians were relieved to learn that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was not harmed when his helicopter crash landed at the Kabbah Township Stadium in Kogi State.

The chopper, chartered from Carverton Helicopters, was conveying the Vice President and 11 others to Kogi for a campaign rally when it toppled over on its side while attempting to land – an incident, described by the chopper owners, as being caused by “unusual weather conditions”.

However, the official report of the cause of the crash landing is still being expected from the AIB, which has already despatched its investigators to the scene.

Incidentally, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has said it could not explain the rationale behind the decision to fly Osinbajo on a commercial helicopter, when they had a number assigned to the Presidential fleet.

“The Presidential Air fleet reports to the Presidency through the National Security Adviser (NSA). They also report to the Chief of Air Staff.

“The Presidential Air fleet is manned by our personnel and the commander is an air force officer, though there are also civilian pilots.

“In terms of how they took that decision, I cannot speak to that. Usually, the vice president flies directly NAF aircraft but you know it is a political rally so they may have taken the decision based on that,” NAF spokesman, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, told journalists.

However, while many might remember that the Vice President’s recent brush with death was the second he would be involved in in the last eight months (his chopper had to make an emergency landing on Friday, June 7, 2018 when smoke was noticed when it was trying to leave the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, in Abuja where he was Special Guest of Honour), not many will know that the bulk of both the accidents and incidents involving Nigerian aircrafts have taken place on weekends!

Investigations by Woleshadarenews revealed an amazing fact that of the about 26 air accidents and incidents that have taken place both inside and outside the country, involving Nigerian planes – wait for it; an unbelievable 14 have occurred on weekends!

However, if one is to add Friday as being part of the weekend, then this goes up to 17 incidences to have occurred over the 72 hours beginning from Friday.

But an aviation expert, former Assistant Secretary of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Alhaji Mohammed Tukur attributed some of the problems to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) which he said grants aircraft maintenance repair extension to airlines.

He said there is a mandatory 18 months aircraft maintenance time frame but noted that NCAA reduced it to 15 months.

His words: “After some time, NCAA started granting maintenance extension to airlines. That possibly could be the reason why we are having some of these problems. It could also be a coincidence but these coincidences are becoming suspicious.

“The NCAA should look into this. There are also pressure on the part of the operators especially for helicopter and light aircraft charters; a situation that could put them under pressure to release airplanes for clients.”

Woleshadarenews also reliably learnt that while the frequency of flights taking off and landing at the various airports dotted across the country remains the same throughout the week and only dips on Saturday due to what we were told was the reduced number of passengers.

“We reduce the number of our flights on Saturday because most people would have reached their destinations on Friday. They only head back to work on Sunday and that is when our flights also return back to normal,” explained an airline executive.

However, could it be human error, to which has been attributed to 80 per cent of both commercial and military airplane crashes? Or could it just be a coincidence that airplanes drop from the sky most frequently only on weekends – Fridays, Saturday and Sundays?

After years of keeping Nigerians in the dark about accident reports, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) under the leadership of Engr. Akin Olateru has released many of the reports. According to the reports, many of the incidences were attributed to either pilot errors or technical problems.

“In fact, while the number of aviation accidents attributable solely to mechanical failure has decreased markedly over the past 40 years, those attributable at least in part to human error have declined at a much slower rate,” he said.

It began back in 2001 when Executive Airline Service (EAS) aircraft owned by the incumbent Governor of Kogi State, Capt. Idris Wada, crashed on May 4, 2002 in Gwarmaja, near Kano, resulting in the death of 78 passengers. It was on a Saturday.

The Bellview and Sosoliso airlines that crashed in Lisa, Ogun State, on October 22, 2005, and in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on  December 10, 2005 respectively, killing a combined number of 225 people, also took place on Saturday.

An ADC plane crashed in Abuja on October 29, 2006 (a weekend), killing 106 passengers. An aircraft belonging to Harka Air crashed in Lagos on June 24, 2005, losing all on board. This equally took place on a weekend.

A Nigerian military plane crashed in Oko village, Benue State, on September 17, 2006 with the loss of 15 very top Nigerian Army officers. It occurred on a weekend.

An OAS service helicopter crashed in Warri, Delta State, on November 10, 2006 – a Friday – with the loss of four lives. On Saturday March 15, 2008, a Wings Aviation airline crashed in Cross River State killing six people.

An OAS helicopter crashed in Ife Odan in Osun State on July 29, 2011 – a Friday – resulting in the loss of three lives. On June 2, 2012, a Nigerian cargo plane shot off the runway into the highway behind Accra’s Kotoka International Airport, killing eight Ghanaian nationals that were working on the apron of the airport. Curiously, this, too, occurred on a Saturday.

The next day, to the shock of Nigerians in what remains the worst air accident in the country, a Dana MD 83 aircraft with 160 passengers, crashed into a residential area in the outskirts of Lagos, killing all passengers on board, the crew and people on ground. The accident happened on a Sunday.

Apart from commercial aircraft, military aircraft have also had their own share of accidents occurring on weekends.

Since September 26, 1992, when a Nigerian Air Force C-130 crashed in a swamp near Ejigbo, killing over 100 young, top military officers, the military has been involved in many crashes that took place at weekends.

Other accidents included the September 12, 1997 NAF Dornier 228-212 crash (a Friday); January 28, 2005 Nigeria Air Force fighter crash (a Friday) and the September 17, 2006 crash of 18-seater Dornier 228 Air Force transport plane flying 15 senior army officers and three crew members, with only three survivors who sustained serious injuries.

The plane crashed in the northern part of the country at Oko village in Vandeikya local council of Benue State.

On March 14, 2012, a helicopter belonging to the Joint Task Force (JTF) crashed in Jos, Plateau State, killing all occupants on board.

Meanwhile, the occurrence of crashes at weekends has raised concern over whether there is laxity in air traffic control or a mere coincidence. There are indications that controllers are in short supply, coupled with the moribund communication gadgets that make pilot-controller communication very difficult most times.

Air traffic controllers’ error showed in the crash of ADC plane in Ejinrin, near Lagos, in 1996. The investigative reports of November 7, 1995, ADC crash into the swamps of Lagos indicated that three times the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) directed pilots in two planes – one taking off, the other about to land – into each other’s paths.

The ill-fated ADC aircraft was equipped with Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which made its pilot realise the error of the ATC.

The other plane was not so equipped. The plane so equipped made a sharp turn away from the other that was not so equipped. The ill-equipped (with Capt. Dafe Sama, one of Nigeria’s most experienced pilots in control), upon discovering also that the air traffic controller had misdirected him, made a turn away but into the path just turned to by the other plane.

The pilot then executed a sharp turn away from the new path of the oncoming plane. This was too much for the elderly plane and it plunged into the Ejinrin River.

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