Nigeria has best aviation safety recorded in Africa – NSIB boss
By Gabriel Agbeja
The Director-General, Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB), Mr Akin Olateru, says Nigeria has the best aviation safety record in Africa with only two fatal accidents within a 10-year period.
In a statement issued on Friday in Abuja, Mr James Odaudu, NSIB’s Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, quoted Olateru as saying this at the 7th Aviation Africa Summit, held in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Seventh Aviation Africa 2023 took place at International Conference Centre Abuja between Sept.13 and Sept.14.
Akineru, who spoke on “Nigeria Evolving Approach To Aviation Safety And Learning From Occurrence Investigation – The NSIB Experience“ explained that the country recorded nine deaths within the period.
“In the last 10 years, there have been two fatal civil accidents leading to the unfortunate loss of 9 souls in Nigeria.
“Between 2005 and 2023, 78 accidents and serious incidents have occurred in the country with four incidents in the safety bulletin amounting to 82 while 260 safety recommendations have been issued.
“ Within the period, there were 12 incidents in the safety bulletin totalling 272 safety recommendation, “ he said.
According to him, the safety recommendations and their appreciable implementation and enforcements were largely responsible for the safety successes recorded since the inception of the current NSIB administration.
He said that the legislative changes and transition of legislative responsibilities over the years had been responsible for the improvement in the Nigerian Airspace.
He explained that there were 154 accidents, 46 of which were fatal between 1948 and 2005 with a total fatality of 1,445 passengers.
“Initially, Civil Aviation Department (CAD) of the Ministry of Aviation handled aviation occurrence investigation as well as Airworthiness Certification.
“This created a peculiar challenge of the Regulator also being the Investigator.
“How could the regulator be expected to objectively investigate herself and hold herself accountable in cases were contributing causes of occurrences were traced to poor or non-existent regulatory oversight function and enforcement by her?”
“It was becoming clear that we had to re-jig our aviation safety regulations and accident investigation and bring them to par with relevant ICAO annexes and international best practices,” he said.
Olateru added that NSIB approaches to aviation safety and learning from occurrence investigation had led to safer skies over Nigeria.
He listed the evolving approaches to include separation of investigative from regulatory functions, granting autonomy and investigative independence to the Investigator (NSIB) and emphasis on early release of accident reports.
Others, he said were the synergy between regulator (NCAA) and investigator (NSIB) in the monitoring and enforcement of safety recommendations, MoUs for collaboration with neighboring countries to help with investigations, and sharing of facilities and information.
The NSIB boss also identified development of mechanism for early reporting of occurrence, development of identified technical skills amongst NSIB staff.
“ Engaging the public and stakeholders on the need to report occurrences as soon as they happen or become aware of them (Mandatory & voluntary) as part of the evolving approaches to accident investigation in Nigeria,
“Also, training of first responders on what to do at accident sites and keeping an occurrence database for the purpose of analysis to identify trends and patterns,”he said.(NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Kevin Okunzuwa/Julius Toba-Jegede
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