How aviation agencies ignore information sharing

Each time one reads that award winning literature book, One week, one trouble by Anezi Okoro and in applying it to happenings in the day to day activities around Nigeria, the most populous African country, the title of the book excellently fits into activities happening in Nigeria’s aviation sector.

The main character in the book, Wilson Tagbo who was always falling into trouble every week can be likened to the aviation sector which is always enmeshed in different controversies week in week out. In other words, hardly will a week sneak past without the sector having one issue or the other confronting it.

Perhaps, this may not be unconnected to its peculiarity vis a vis the sensitive roles it plays in line with international global standard as stipulated by the International civil aviation rules.

While the international Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is the global body monitoring and ensuring the rules guiding safety of aircraft movements are not compromised, each signatory member of the organization which include Nigeria through its regulatory agencies must be able to be the eyes and ears of the international body through ensuring all civil aviation rules are up to standard.

Therefore, in Nigeria, top among the agencies responsible for this compliance is the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on whose shoulder lies the function of ensuring all aviation businesses particularly the ones being carried out by the airlines are not compromised through undiluted and constant oversight functions that will prevent or reduce to the barest minimum accidents and incidents.

However, because there is no perfect system, in the case of any accident or incident, the Accident Investigation Bureau’s major contribution comes in as it is expected to use the wealth of experience of its investigators to unravel the secondary and primary causes of the accident or incident for the purpose of preventing a recurrence.

This is just as other agencies like the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency and the Nigerian  College of Aviation Technology all have their roles to play towards making flight operations across the airports safe to the flying public.

This then brings to the fore, the controversy that started brewing earlier this week between the AIB and Air Peace Airline on one hand and AIB and the NCAA on the other hand.

The week of trouble was kickstarted with a statement issued by the AIB Commissioner, Akin Olateru which accused Air Peace of flouting regulations governing the reportage of serious incidences.

According to Olateru, weeks after the incident involving the airline, the Accident Investigation Bureau did not receive any notification from the airline but only received a submission of a Mandatory Occurrence Report’ (MOR) subsequently filed at NCAA as a direct result of the Bureau’s visit to Air Peace office on the 6th day of June 2019”.

Swiftly, the Air Peace management through its Chairman, Allen Onyema insisted that  the airline did not only disagree with the position of AIB which accused the airline of consistently failing to file Mandatory Occurrence Report (MOR), on incidents involving its aircraft, but wondered if such statement was issued in good faith.

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While describing the AIB’s position as a misrepresentation of facts concerning the incidents in question, Onyema said contrary to the statement from the AIB that the airline failed to report the incident to the Bureau, it actually “duly notified the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) of the incident on May 16, 2019, before it followed up with a written communication and subsequently filed an MOR on May 17, 2019, with reference number APL/QM/279/19. The said MOR filed by the airline was received and signed for by the NCAA on the same date.The airline complied with the statutory time-lime for the filing of MOR.”

In the midst of this melee, where lies the competency of the NCAA as the regulatory body that is suppose to work with AIB when such incidents occur?

Agreed that Air Peace may have erred by not reporting the incident to the AIB, an agency directly responsible for such issues, but since it reported to the NCAA, the question is; should NCAA not have called the attention of AIB to this and what stopped the AIB from also reaching out to the NCAA when the information got to it?

What can be deduced from this imbroglio is that the aviation agencies don’t share information which is the worst thing that can happen to a sector like aviation because of the damning consequences this may bring.

It is unfortunate that prior to now, key players had and are still raising questions about the lackadaisical attitude  of the NCAA and yet the federal government is looking the other way.

Or is the government waiting for accident to happen before it will review the composition of the NCAA management which is presently wobbling?

If only the NCAA and other relevant aviation agencies realized how communication lapses between the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)  and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was responsible for the death of thousands of Americans during the September 11 attacks, none of them will continue to flex muscle or fight for supremacy while on that temporary seat they occupy.