NIMET DG laments vandalism of weather equipment at airports

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The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) has lamented the continued vandalisation of some of its equipment and infrastructure across the country’s airports and stations, including the Lagos airport.

Speaking with journalists, Director-General of NiMET, Professor Mansur Matazu, cited Port Harcourt airport where the entire mast was cut off from the base, posing a huge financial challenge to the agency.

This is just as the NiMET DG said though it is saddled with the responsibility of rolling out weather forecasts to the public, particularly airlines operators and pilots, it lacked the statutory power to force them to comply with the regular weather advisories.

Speaking on the installation of low-level windshear (LLW) at airports, Matazu recalled that the project started after the unfortunate Sosoliso Airlines aircraft crash of December 10, 2005 when 108 persons died in the full glare of firefighters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

Matazu said the low-level wind shear alert system had been installed in 18 airports across the country with a plan to cover all the country’s airports.

He said, “In Lagos, even within the airport perimeter, we recorded vandalism, but we were able to weather through the storm. One, we are working on alternative technology that we call Terminal Doppler Radar, though it is expensive.

“We are also devising what we call the north-central approach, which helps us to study cloud physics over any area in the country. With cloud physics knowledge, you would know whether clouds could result in microburst and it is from microburst from an entire set of clouds that we could have wind shear.”

On the lack of power by the agency to compel pilots to comply with its weather advisories, Professor Matazu insisted that while every pilot knows the weather condition of departing and arriving airports even before take-off, the final decision-making rests solely with him.

“When they say Pilot-in-Command (PIC), even Air Traffic Controller (ATC) can’t dictate to them. They give them information and they say at your discretion. So, part of that awareness is our meteorology information.

“Every 30 minutes and real time, there is a screen at the control tower where they give them updates if there is any sudden change in weather. Even before take-off, we have pilot briefing room where you get our folder and that is why we are beginning to publish those airlines that collect our folder and we have email platform,” he added.

The NiMET DG, while reacting to an incident where an aircraft landed and skidded off the Lagos airport runway due to a heavy downpour, said, “The issue is compliance and pilots have the final say. However, the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) has already written to us to give them the weather situation in Lagos on that day.

“On that serious incident, they cannot say we didn’t report rain and we have rain. We reported rain with the intensity and I am sure the ATC must have said watch out for wet runway and there are procedures for wet runway landing.

“Lagos Airport is one of our flashpoints and so you get the best of our staff and the best of our equipment. As you know more than 70 percent of our flights happen in Lagos and so you don’t expect anything below standard in terms of our services.”

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