This Day (Lagos)
Chinedu Eze
2 November 2009
Lagos — Air Traffic Controllers have raised alarm over the poor navigational aids in the nation's airspace, which may threaten safety, saying that government's efforts to improve facilities in the airspace have been very slow.
The controllers fear that the existing blind spots in various parts of the airspace if not urgently eliminated through provision of radio communication system may jeopardise safety of flight operations.
Newly re-elected president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), Jibrin Haske, raised the alarm when he spoke with newsmen at the weekend. He noted that although the government and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) have tried to address the communication problems in the airspace last year by providing temporary measures. He said that such efforts were not effective as blind spots (areas where there is no communication) still persist in the airspace.
Haske said the solution to the problem was a holistic approach to the communication problem, adding that the greatest problem of the country's airspace was that the airspace was being managed from two centers in Lagos and Kano, instead of creating more area control centres to cover the whole country.
"Two area control centres are not enough because at the same time you are supposed to be communicating with aircraft under those geographical areas that are under their control. An area controller sitting in Lagos should be able to talk to aircraft overhead Calabar without any stress so that if he gives an instruction the pilot who is in Calabar will hear the controller in Lagos loud and clear and comply immediately and promptly in order to avert any incident or accident"
The NATCA president stressed that communication was generally inadequate and that government intervention was needed to address the problem by making available required funds as it did for the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) project.
He promised that NATCA would ensure that the VHF radio project which has been approved by the government did not drag like the TRACON project.
"We are happy with the TRACON project, which is good, but remember TRACON took many years to implement. So that is why we are a little bit restrained. We are happy the Federal Government has approved VHF coverage project; we only hope it will not be like TRACON. I mean within six months it should be completed"
He said any NAVAIDS now should be more on satellite based navigational communication system and surveillance in air traffic management and communication, navigation surveillance (ATM/CNS), rather than terrestrial facilities currently in place, noting that the former would reduce cost of operations for NAMA.
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