Aircraft accidents often come with rising concerns for safety of air travellers.

Once again, the Associated Aviation Limited Embraer 120 aircraft that crashed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos a few minutes after take-off last Thursday has again brought to fore the safety of aircraft operations in the nation’s aviation industry.

Recently, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) rated air safety in Africa low and also made some far reaching suggestions on what should be done to improve the safety of aircraft operations in the region. According to the director-general of IATA, Tony Tyler, who spoke in Lagos last month during IATA’s ‘Aviation Day Africa’ conference, though the continent was growing its economy, there was need to invest more on aviation safety, infrastructure and others.

“Safety is our top priority. And Africa’s performance is well below what we are achieving globally,” said Tyler. He averred that in 2012, African airlines had one accident (with a western-built jet aircraft) for every 270,000 flights, while globally, the industry average was one accident for every five million flights. In Nigeria, the industry has within the last one year recorded four major accidents involving four Nigerian registered aircraft. They include the Allied Air cargo aircraft that crashed in Ghana, Dana Air MD 83 that crashed in Lagos, the private jet involving Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State and Associated Airline charter flight of last Thursday.

From the foregoing, it becomes obvious that Nigeria needs to adopt measures that will curb aircraft accidents. Last year, Nigeria recorded one of its worst aircraft accidents with the crash of the Dana Air MD83 aircraft that crashed in Iju Ishaga, Lagos on June 3. The crash resulted in a national outcry for aviation authorities to overhaul the industry and ensure the safety of aircraft, passengers and airports.

Though the Aviation Ministry eventually came up with the New Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP), the document received a lot of knocks from industry stakeholders, as some alleged that stakeholders were not carried along during its formation, while some said the new policy had reduced the autonomy of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), turning it into a toothless bulldog with its powers now being exercised by the Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah. The question most people have raised is how useful is the new policy to aviation safety and whether the industry is now operating on cash and carry basis?

In a petition sent to the Senate Committee on Aviation, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) said though the policy speaks glowingly about autonomy of agencies particularly in the area of regulations, on a closer look, it “recreates the pre- 2006 period, which hallmark was extensive ministerial control and outright management of the sector. The policy enlarges the role of the ministry by assigning functions in licencing, economic regulations and determining rule and laws guiding aircraft operations. All these functions as at today fall under the purview of the NCAA as contained in the act of 2006.”

Very often, aviation authorities have maintained that Nigeria has implemented a lot of safety-related programmes as part of efforts to improve aviation safety. However, the constant aircraft accidents and incidents involving Nigerian registered airlines still show that more work is needed in the area of safety oversight on aircraft. Also, the regulatory authority still insists that the last oversight on aircraft rests with the operator. Of course that should be the case in an ideal situation, but current happenings now show that more work is needed in that regard. This is important, especially now that stakeholders have alleged of the rot in the industry especially in the issuance of Air Operator Certificate (AOC). Some have alleged that some airlines are getting AOC without actually meeting up with all the relevant requirements.

An AOC is the approval given by a civil aviation authority to an airline to operate commercial flights with its aircraft.

It requires the operator to have personnel, assets and system in place to ensure the safety of operations.

These allegations are very big dents on the progress so far made in the industry that has made it possible for Nigeria’s aviation to scale through the International Civil Aviation safety audits as well as acquire the category one certification of the industry by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

It was based on the poor performance of African countries on air safety which IATA at its Africa Day summit held in Lagos urged all African countries to make it a policy that all airlines operating in the region must adopt the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), a programme that would further raise the safety oversight of airline operations in the region.

Though this might somewhat task the finances of airlines in the region, it corroborates the saying that “anything worth doing is worth doing well.” No one can ever put a price on human life, and aviation authorities should conform to global trends to avert further air crashes in Nigeria.