my question.
Ow many bottles of chilled gulder did u consume?
Ow many bottles of stout did d captain chill?
Thanks in anticipation...

@Heykims


What are you on about?

Its really not surprising to me per se....Humans tends to what to cut corners sometimes...howver when it jeopardizes our lives, then its worrisome!

Very educative write up. Now, we know what our aviation problems are and can now systematically deal with it. The Minister who said accidents are inevitable and God's will should please rise up to her duties and stop blaming God for her problems. NCAA and other authorities should please DO THE RIGHT THING. They shouldn't forget that its not only ordinary Nigerians that fly, they too "the all powerful" and their families use these aircrafts or would use as the case may be...

Its also beautiful to see that pilots don't think or care too much for/about themselves, but for their passengers. Such a selfless career IMO.

Nonsense! The only reason whites are more safety conscious is the amount their insurance will have to cough up for negligence, it's not as if whites care about human lives than blacks, they simply care about their money and protecting their bottom line.
If Nigeria can make airline operators to be heavily insured, we are half way there

yunglykmine: "Airline business is not supposed to be run by black people"... Black people and the nonchalant attitudes to life-threatening issues.

That statement is an insult sha.
Racist statement.

If the "white" values life more than the "black", which race would you entrust your own life with. Whatever your choice, would you see it as an insult to the race you left out?

Am 35yrs old and yet to see or hear air crashes involving airlines that take nigerians abroad, our crashes are always inside the country, I am linking these crashes to black mentality regarding standards, until we start keeping rules and observing regulations, so long will we experience this accidents.

yunglykmine: "Airline business is not supposed to be run by black people"... Black people and the nonchalant attitudes to life-threatening issues.

That statement is an insult sha.
Racist statement.

Na lie?
Don't bring sentiment into this.

We are not capable means we are not capable.

Or u wanna know that we are not capable until a loved one of urs is lost in a plane crash due to negligence of a black woman or man that would do anything to maximize profit?

Abeg, let them even shut those planes down for a while. We are tired. U go enter plane, and na prayer u go dey pray from the beginning of the journey till u exit the terminal of arrival, cos even the supposed plane might decide to explode after being parked!

No peace of mind while on board!

Who are d whites? D indian,korean,lebanese,chinese?? Gv them aviatn and we r doomed come to sango ota @ their company to c severe cases of injuries which they dnt care who is dead or alive but all they care is profit nd sales

Some people re abusing. The poster/pilot. I pity u all.

First, the pilot was sharing his experience first hand. He mentioned he fought his wife, got to work, white boss saw his mood and send him home to fix his mind with his wife.


Now tell me, how many of us Nigerians can do that? Wetin concern me if u beat ur wife, abeg get to d plane n fly or loose ur precious job! Thatz d average naija mentality. You don't agree?

Ok, since when av u asked ur secretary why she is looking moody today?

Ur workers in d factory, when last did u ask him how he is doing @ home?

My prayer: We shall get there one day.

This is d bitter truth! White people would av done it better! Look @ d Country as a whole!

Ekpekus: Quite a revealing article. While I agree with the point raised on cutting corners and lack of proper maintenance, i however disagree with the notion that the whites run it better. Plane crash occurs everywhere and most times due to human errors.

In every sector, human error has been seen to be the leading cause of problem of which we all are directly or indirectly involved.

What are you suggesting that we employ robots to fly our planes? Atleast robots are free of human errors!

handebayor: Rubbish!!! Putting the cart before the horse, while not say they should take over the country again. Instead of proposing an overhaul of the industry and encourage more training schools and co he iz busy spewing rubbish

Seriously, you took it off my mouth, how many things will the white manage for us? Telecommunication white, transportation white, electricity white. Haba!

black like is pocket more dan safety

Ademat7: Who are d whites? D indian,korean,lebanese,chinese?? Gv them aviatn and we r doomed come to sango ota @ their company to c severe cases of injuries which they dnt care who is dead or alive but all they care is profit nd sales

My brother, we re talking of proper white people, UK/US, Ca not all these chinko and kora nah

odedeyi01: [img]http://1.bp..com/-lB8MEpGMzoU/TfD6gyYAJvI/AAAAAAAADnw/Kiy-IkJQF1M/s1600/.jpg[/img]

The encounter was pretty fortuitous. I had gone to a have lunch at a restaurant somewhere in Ikeja GRA, and was busy doing justice to the chilled bottle of Gulder beer, while waiting for my food to be served, when the gentleman who was addressed by the friend who had accompanied him as ‘captain’ walked into the restaurant and sat right next to me.

There was a certain air of professionalism and savoir-faire about him and soon, the journalist in me- ever curious kicked in. I wanted to initiate some conversation with him- just friendly conversation. “Are you in the armed forces, since you were addressed as ‘captain’? I had asked, trying to break the ice, Displaying a willingness to also engage me, he had answered in the negative “I am an airline captain. I fly planes” he had intoned, and considering the tragedy that had occurred last week, with the crash of The Associated Airline that was conveying the corpse of the late Ondo state Governor-Dr. Olusegun Agagu to Akure, I felt a strong push to ask the captain some pertinent questions about the state of aviation given his experience as a captain and an aviator of more than 30 years as he had told me.

As most of the readers of this column would have known, I am very particular and concerned about safety and how friendly our skies are for air travel, having last year, to the glory of God, narrowly missed the Dana Air that crashed on June, 3, and my earlier experience aboard a British Airways flight from JFK, New York, to Heathrow Airport, London, in 2005 that caught fire upon take-off, but managed to make an emergency landing that was truly miraculous.

The captain was surprisingly candid and answered all my questions without hesitation. “The state of our aviation” he had told me point-blank, “is not too encouraging. We take a lot of things for granted with safety. We cut corners on things that demand strict compliance with what obtains elsewhere. For instance, there are some aircraft parts that may have ‘timed-out’ and need to be replaced with newer versions. We sometimes allow those parts to remain because they are still functional and the newer ones are too expensive. That should not be. The manufacturers of those aircrafts were conscious of the fact that at certain point, those parts need to be changed. I have seen maintenance being carried out on aircrafts in the open space as opposed to being done in hangers- that should not be. We skirt around vital issues of safety, and that again, should not be.”

I asked the captain if he had ever been pressured by his employers to fly an aircraft that he knew was not completely airworthy, but had to be ‘managed’ to the next destination. He looked at me for almost a minute and in a very concerned tone said “yes, I have” and added rather reassuringly that “that has stopped over the years and as we speak, I will not jeopardize the safety of my passengers whose lives have been entrusted under my care.”

One area the captain harped on ceaselessly was the emotional and psychological state of our pilots and how that is very critical to the safety of passengers. He went ahead to illustrate that with a personal experience. “When I used to fly with one of the airlines (name withheld) and it was run by white guys, I remember coming to work one day and did not exhibit my normal exuberant self. The MD had invited me to his office and asked what the matter was, and I told him the truth that I had a little issue with my wife that morning at home and that I was ok. He looked me straight in the eye and said I should go home and resolve the issue and return to work in three days. In his considered opinion, I was not in the right emotional/ psychological state of mine to fly and the safety of the passengers was of utmost concern to him.

How many of our operators today pay such attention to the emotional state of our pilots? I am aware of the fact that some pilots in the employ of some our airlines are owed salaries for months. How do you expect a pilot who is struggling to pay his bills and meet some basic financial obligations to his family to be in the right frame of mind to fly? Someone once told me that airline business is not supposed to be run by black people, since we seem not to pay attention to critical issues in the industry. I refuse to buy into that notion, but I must confess certain things I have seen in the industry almost has forced me to think the guy may have been right. Look at even the simple issue of parking space at our airports. Do you know that pilots don’t have parking slots at airports allocated to them, as is the case elsewhere? A pilot who is scheduled to fly say at 8 am, may have already been stressed by the time he mounts the cockpit, having already circled around for minutes, looking for parking space for his car- that is if he does not have a driver. Such minor thing can impact negatively on the pilot’s state of mind.”

When asked how safe it is to fly within the Nigerian airspace, the captain was brutally frank “It is relatively safe, I must say. But you should fly those airlines that have been audited by foreign technical partners. Any airline that you see some expatriates fly with regularly, tells you that their employers and their embassies must have been satisfied with the auditing that those airline technical partners had carried out, because those partners will not compromise safety, neither will they cut corners unnecessarily. “

As the captain made his exit, I did an analysis on what he had just told me, and I became very afraid and angry. Why should safety in air be compromised based on the need to make profit? Why would an operator willingly put an aircraft up in the sky that he knows is not airworthy? According to sources, one of the airlines whose operational license was suspended almost had a mishap because an engine packed up on a flight from Port-Harcourt to Lagos, but thank God, the second engine was able to power the plane to landing.

I hope and pray that the regulatory agencies of the industry will put the safety of passengers first over and above all other considerations. Nigerian is adopting the best practices in so many aspects of our globalized space, and these are very heartening. We must extend same to our critical sector of aviation. Air travel is cons.idered the safest means of transportation; it should not be a scary proposition in Nigeria.

[Source: This Day Live]

More Gist/News @ http:///C2jqI

black men value their profit more than human lives

whitecat007: Nonsense! The only reason whites are more safety conscious is the amount their insurance will have to cough up for negligence, it's not as if whites care about human lives than blacks, they simply care about their money and protecting their bottom line.
If Nigeria can make airline operators to be heavily insured, we are half way there

Don't go there! If we use Nigeria as our reference, @whitecat007 the blacks have little or no value for lives. For now, It is a no contest situation please. I hope we get there someday but we are just not there yet.

we are yet to free ourselves from mental slavery

Omexonomy: Why are black people like these?

because we are black

Nothing new here, infact the whole country should be managed by white people

crackhaus: As much as I agree to an extent with everything the Captain said, I still think that as blacks, we are the ones selling ourselves short by making derogatory comments like 'white people should run this and run that'.
The problem is not that we are not capable of adherence to guidelines, rather it's that there are no stringent complications and bodies to implement them when something does go wrong.
Then again, there is the 'let me help my brother mentality' that abound in Nigeria, which is like our biggest developmental problem because this has only led to appointment of unqualified quacks in aviation control and monitoring masquerading themselves as experts and professionals.

It's not white people we need, it's an overhaul of the political structure that supports 'this na my person mentality'.

I do not agree with you. I think it is totally unacceptable for us as a society to say that government must always continue to chase us around before we do the right thing. There are basic values in life that people must adhere to or society cannot work. That is why I do not believe that any government can fight corruption if the society value system is destroyed. No government can fight corruption without the help of society itself. People like to give examples of Europe but they always fail to mention that thing work there because the majority of people in that society believe the right thing should always be done. If you do the wrong thing, people will ask you questions as private individuals. People will challenge you. They do not wait for the police to challenge you. They will do it themselves. When the police comes in, they will willingly and gladly give information to nail you. It is a mindset, not just government running around trying to discipline people. When Nigerians travel to other countries, many still display the same terrible attitudes they have back home. We must change as a nation. We must have a completely reorientation to life. It is very fundamental

omenpetrol: we are yet to free ourselves from mental slavery

we blacks have been so enslaved that we associate the white race some notches above we blacks. competence is not judged by the colour of skin.... we keep waiting for the whites to do things for us that why we never do anything for ourselves

Wih all of these, can Stella Oduah deny? lf nagative, why is she still in that office?

Hmmn, der is an iota of truth in wat d guy said...its just our normal way of life esp Africans, we do not pay attention to details at all.
Since I left naija to practice medicine here ...gush, d diff is too clear. Yes, its same me n same medical knowledge but I dare nt do dos things I do in naija. And dis is due to both systemic n personal issues. They pay as much attention to putting policies in place as to ensuring these policies r enforced. There r more non-clinical staffs than clinical ones in every hosp here.
Every single minute, ur license is on the line. Every thing u do is traceable. The IT they run in d hosp is superb ...dey wl 'catch' u sha ni. They also put systems in place to help u, u av al d guidelnes on d intranet, u av ppl to call to seek help and der is absoultely nothing wrong wt 'i dont know' even if ur consultant asks u. Everyone appreciates it. But d moment u commit to sometn, den u r liable even ten yrs frm now, u r stl liable for wat u did today. No one expects u to prescribe from ur brain/head ( dt sh*t is rubbish)...there is BNF everywhere n u cannot say 'i forgot', ' i thought'...etc.
If u wake up in d morning not feelin up to it, u r encouraged to 'call in sick n only return to work wen u r fine'. The moment u step in....no excuses, u av to give d best care possible.
No matter aw much i try to hurry, i stl spend nothing less than an hour to see one patient ( due to al d mandatory things u must do) meanwhile for naija, we dey see pts 10/15 mns o...no one ova works u here, u r either on day or night shifts....i remember wen i used to do weekend shifts in naija ( work 24hrs a day frm friday til monday morn) wen i no b machine, wat do u expect d quality of care to be?
I av learnt a lot n wen i come back to start up my own practice in naija( by Gods grace), thngs wl certainly not be d same.
Pls in everything we do ( whether aviation, medical etc) let us value human life cos everytin we do impacts directly or indirectly on the survival of d other man...yh, even if u work wt LAWMA...lol

WEN WIL NIGERIA BE MATURE FOR CRITICAL CASES LIKE DIS I DOON TIRE OO FOR THIS COUNTRY

He that wears the shoe knows were it pinches,indeed tha truth is bitter

Ogui eke: ORG. am just nearly 3rd to comment. o halaluja to ur name glorious God. tell seun to send my cash instanta.

you better watch your comments, when the time comes to praise God now, you will back off.

Yes!! Whiteman should also manage Nigeria as a country too..mtchewww...S.H.M. blackman their mentality..

Some Nigerians in collaboration with some of these fraudulent Lebanese people and some coloured people pretending to be white people are killing the industry. The way we run air transport in this country is too bad. You can imagine the crashed aircraft's pilot and engineers arguing before the aircraft crashed. We are in a mess and a Minister coming to say it was an act of God is annoying.

Saying that white people should run our airline industry shows the inferiority complex of the pilot. The issue is that our aviation sector is run by individuals with neither aviation experience nor education in a field related to aviation. Take, for example, the minister of aviation, whose background is in accounting and business administration, a field completely unrelated to aviation. Now how do you expect her--an accountant--to run effectively a ministry of aviation? That is the problem.

To the contrary, we have had blacks do good jobs in running an organization, as shown by the minister of agriculture, which is a good case study. Minister Adesina has a PhD in agricultural economics and has experience running regulatory bodies pertaining to agriculture, which obviously is his passion and expertise. He is doing a good job in the Ministry of Agriculture.

mmmmm interesting huh

I never knew human error had a colour.

mustaphagreens:
What are you suggesting that we employ robots to fly our planes? Atleast robots are free of human errors!

Robots are built by humans, so it is subject to human error. Any human error in building the robot can cause the robot to malfunction.