THE unfortunate crash of a helicopter marked HEL-BEL 206 and with registration number 5N-BQ at Opebi in Lagos which killed all three crew members on board, recently, became more tragic being the first aviation fatality the country will record in over five years.
The ill fated helicopter belonging to Quorum Aviation Limited with the crew members was returning from Port Harcourt to Murtala Muhammed Airport when its mission was suddenly truncated at Opebi due to a yet to be unraveled reason.
The chopper crashed into a building destroying it and many different properties though, no other lives were lost except those of the crew on board.
As expected, the government agency saddled with the responsibility of investigating what transpired between the flight, the Air Traffic Control and cause of the subsequent crash, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) has since commenced investigations into the unfortunate crash.
While the whole aviation family awaits the report of the investigations, certain scenarios which played out during the crash is worth recalling if not for any other reason but to serve as a precautionary measure in the face of future accident or incident.
In the first place, the role played by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) in being the first to get to the crash site at Salvation Street, Opebi and the quick alert to the AIB of the accident was in order.
However, one sad incident that reared its head during the latest crash which had become recurring in times of accidents in the country is the seeming hijack of the statutory role of the Accident Investigation Bureau vis a vis which agency should speak on certain issues.
Without doubt, since the crash happened outside the airport vicinity, LASEMA did a good job of rushing ahead to salvage the situation which is allowed in rules guiding crashes outside airport vicinity, but its decision to dabble into an area that fell under the jurisdiction of AIB was not palatable.
Recall how the Director General, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu while addressing some journalists at the crash site declared that the AIB had retrieved the black box.
According to Osanyintolu: “The Accident Investigation Bureau has retrieved the black box and transported the wreckage of the aircraft to their office for further investigations”.
This singular statement, as innocent as it may be for the LASEMA DG, created a lot of confusion not only for the aviation community but led to misinformation which set the media space on fire with many mounting pressures on the aviation authorities.
In the first instance, the ill fated helicopter though described as one of the best choppers operating across the globe was not built to carry a black box as it belonged to the category of light weight jets.
Rejecting the recovery of the black box saga, the AIB Commissioner, Akin Olateru declared: “We are aware of the speculations circulating on social media and other public fora with regards to the probable cause of the crash and AIB’s retrieval of the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), popularly known as the black box. We would like to clarify that AIB did not retrieve an FDR from the aircraft as the Bell 206 is certified at approximately 1,519kg (3,350lbs) and featured five seats. It does not meet the necessary criteria for an FDR and was not featured with one. The standard requirement for an FDR in any aircraft is 10 seats.”
While the AIB’s statement would have by now doused the hype created by the earlier position of the LASEMA DG, the fact is that the frenzy the statement created has definitely sent wrong signals to the other climes on how critical issues relating to crashes are often handled without recourse to rules in Nigeria.
Prior to the latest crash, it has become a habit for many unauthorized people to run commentaries during crashes with many giving unsubstantiated claims which often aggravated tension capable of derailing investigations. All these confusions could have been avoided if each government agency knows where it’s function terminates without hijacking the role of others.
While the LASEMA has the right to talk on general observations, it has no right to speak for AIB on critical issues like black box and other critical crash components.
The present AIB management has done so well in the areas of investigating crashes and should, therefore, be allowed to carry out such functions whenever the need arises.
This will save everyone the embarrassment of unsubstantiated comments often witnessed during accidents or incidents.
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