Following the recent crash involving a Germanwings
aircraft in France and the subsequent revelations made
as to the cause of the accident,aviation stakeholders
have beamed the spotlight on the mental health of
pilots operating in Nigeria.

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has,
however, dispelled such fears, saying that pilots
operating in Nigeria have not experienced issues
concerning their mental fitness in carrying out their job.

The Deputy General Manager, Corporate Affairs of
NCAA, Mr. Samuel Adurogboye, who revealed this, said
that the common cases the regulatory authority handle
concerning pilots’ state of health were eye sight issues,
obesity and heart issues.

Adurogboye added that the authority always carried out
six-month interval medical test on all the pilots,
including foreign pilots operating in the country.

“I am not aware of any mental unfitness issue, but I
know of issues of eye sight, obesity and heart, these are
common among pilots here. The healthiest people on
earth are the pilots because they were tested the actual
medical test at a six-month interval,’’ he said.

According to him, pilots who violated the rules and
regulations of the authority were always sanctioned.

Adurogboye noted that pilots who came into Nigeria to
fly, no matter the country where they had their
training, usually undergo the NCAA examination before
they were given the NCAA licence to operate in Nigeria.

His words: “We will give you certain things to read like
the syllabus and timetable to go and study, then after
the agreed time, normally three months, you come and
do exam. If you pass, we give you our own licence. The
licence from here does not qualify you to fly in the USA
or South Africa, likewise those from other countries do
not qualify you to fly here.

“You will then have to go to the Nigeria College of
Aviation Technology (NCAT) to be trained on language
and other things because you will have to be
communicating with our Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs),’’
he said.

He further stated that the airline operator who
employed the pilot or crew was not allowed to get
involved during the medical examination of their pilots.
He said that NCAA encourages the airlines to do their
own medical assessments of their pilots and submit their
report to the regulatory authority for comparism.

“We have a department on medical but the department
does not handle mental fitness for pilots. If we start
asking them to handle it, it will affect their operations
and proficiency. Which means we will start going to
manufacture tissue or files they want to use? We give
that job to external source that has the laboratory, the
expertise and has the experience to do it,’’ he said.

He explained that what applied to a Nigerian pilot also
applies to a foreign pilot who chooses to fly in the
country.

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