Leadership (Abuja)
Golu Timothy
5 November 2009
Abuja — Minister of Aviation, Babatunde Omotola, yesterday alerted the nation on how two aircraft, flying almost on the same altitude, narrowly escaped air collision last week.
He blamed the situation on an error by an air traffic controller in one of the airports, whom he said has been suspended by the aviation authorities upon investigation, while his supervisor received a query, adding that the two aircraft involved have been grounded. He, however, did not mention the names of the aircraft.
Speaking on the issue yesterday at the Presidential Villa, Omotola gave a graphic picture of a disaster that was averted, saying the development has woken the authorities from sleep so that the nation's pilots do not continue to fly blindly.
According to him,"Last Friday, there was an air mishap at Port Harcourt. An aircraft was taking off from Calabar, while another one was coming to land in Calabar, and they were about to collide in Port Harcourt.
"Our investigations revealed that the accident was due to air traffic controller error. When we looked at his log book, we discoverd that the pilot that was coming to land was supposed to descend at a level of 21,000 feet, whereas what he put down on his log was 25,000 feet.
"He also had the one which was taking off to Lagos to stay at 24,000 feet, so they had to cross paths".
The minister added,"What saved the situation was the line of defence we have in our airspace. On every aircraft in Nigeria we have what we call Traffic Collision Avoidance System. So one of the aircraft was able to notice that an aircraft was coming very close to it, and then it decided to come down 5,000 feet to ensure there was no collision.
"So we are happy to discover that there was no collision, and the TCAS that was put on our aircraft is working, otherwise it would have been disastrous on Friday.
"We have grounded the two aircraft. We have called the crew. Investigations are going on between NCAA and NAMA. The first meeting was held on November 3, and then we also got all the ATC's tape, as well as the log book. It was from there that we realized that it was an ATC error.
"In addition to being an ATC error, one would have expected that the aircraft coming to land should have also noticed, because, from our investigations, we have noticed that it was only one aircraft that was able to get that signal.
"We are inviting an expert to come and look at all our aircraft to be sure that the TCAS we have are not epileptic.
"By the end of this month when the total radar coverage is fully up, the ATC in Port Harcourt, their error rate would be reduced, they would be able to see clearly. But in all these, I want to assure the nation that Nigeria's airspace is safe.We are happy that this accident was averted.
"The ATC that made the mistake has been suspended, his supervisor has been queried and we are continuing with our investigation. We will be able to know more very soon."
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Why doesn't the Government and/or the Minister spend the money needed to keep the infrastructure repaired, people trained and provided with adequate supplies. If you go to most control towers and Area Control Centres, you will find that they do not even have paper for the printers (for the few that actually work) and ink pens. We should all be ashamed. Air traffic should be grounded until the situation improves.