Timely release of accident reports crucial, says AIB boss

• Why Kabo, Aero, Skybird incidents occurred

Commissioner, Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Akin Olateru has re-emphasized the timeliness of aircraft accident reports, saying that timely release of occurrence reports is very crucial to the delivery of the agency’s mandate of investigating air accident and serious incidents with the aim of forestalling such occurrence from reoccurring.

The aircraft engineer at a briefing in Abuja on Thursday while releasing three serious incident reports and two safety bulletin reports stated that the Bureau under his administration was doing all its to ensure that aircraft accident and serious incidents that fall under the purview of AIB are promptly, excellently and professionally investigated by their well-seasoned air safety investigators.

The accident reports were those involving a Gulfstream G-1V aircraft owned and operated by Skybird Air with nationality and registration number 5N-BOD which occurred at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on September 12, 2018; serious incident involving a B747-400 aircraft owned and operated by Kabo Air Limited with registration number 5N-JRM which occurred at the Sokoto airport on October 4, 2013 and serious incident involving a B737-500 aircraft owned and operated by Aero Contractors with registration 5N-BLG which occurred on Runway 18R of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on April 9^th, 2016.

Olateru attributed the cause of the serious incident involving the Gulfstream aircraft which occurred in Abuja to delayed response by the crew to recognize that the ground spoilers and thrust reversers were locked out led to the runway overrun, delayed deployment of ground spoilers led to the flight crew’s problems in stopping the airplane within the remaining available runway length.

For the Kabo Air’s B747-400 which occurred at the Sokoto airport, the cause of the accident was attributed to inappropriate visual approach profile at night with no vertical guidance, un-serviceable Visual Approach Slope Indicator (VASI) on Runway 26 and decision to land on the non-precision runway 26 at night while the cause of accident involving Aero Contractors which occurred was due to  excessive rudder application by the crew after touchdown, reduced visibility due heavy rain on touchdown and  the decision to continue approach in an un-favourable weather condition with crosswind component of 090˚ /15kt caused the incident.

Also released were two safety bulletins. These two bulletins released make the total of three safety bulletins released by the Bureau. All safety bulletins released by the Bureau so far were released under my administration at AIB.

The AIB boss urged stakeholders to ensure they avail themselves of the AIB reports, draw useful lessons from them and implement the safety recommendations where applicable, adding that If they fail to do these, all the time and resources invested into the investigation of serious incidents and accidents by AIB would have been wasted.

His words, “Safety recommendations are critical to the Bureau’s basic role of accident prevention since it is the lever used to bring about safety changes to, and improvements in the nations aviation system. It is therefore expected that the stakeholders would take the AIB-N safety recommendations very seriously and complement AIB-N’s efforts by implementing the recommendations, where applicable, to prevent future recurrence of similar events”.

Safety in the aviation sector, he reiterated is a collective exercise stressing that it requires that stakeholders including agencies, operators and relevant professionals accept responsibilities and play their parts creditably.

“This is the way to go if we must sustain the current impressive level of safety in the Nigerian aviation sector. The purpose of accident investigation, however, is not to apportion blame or liability but to prevent future recurrence of similar incidents.”

Three weeks ago, AIB released four final reports to the public. Inclusive in those final reports were eight safety recommendations. With the release of three additional reports, the agency has so far released a total of 59 final reports since its establishment in 2007 while a total of 40 final reports out of these were under the current administration of the Bureau.

Inclusive in the final reports released yesterday are 16 safety recommendations, which he said which were very important towards preventing recurrence of such serious incidents when the safety recommendations are adhered to.

The 16 safety recommendations make a total of 211 safety recommendations released since the inception of AIB and a total of 127 safety recommendations released under the current administration.

Wole Shadare