Nigerian Flight Deck Travel and Business Reportage
COMMISSIONER, Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) Nigeria, Engineer Akin Olateru has said that the investigators in releasing the report of Air Peace flight did not gather enough information and had to retract after going through the aircraft Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR).
The AIB had on March 8, 2021 commenced investigation into what it described as a serious incident involving a Boeing 737 with Nationality and Registration Marks 5N-BUQ operated by Air Peace at Runway 18R.
However, after reassessment of the incident the Bureau determined that occurrence falls under the category of incident, and ceded the investigation to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
Olateru who talked about this during a courtesy call by the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) said, “What actually happened was that when I returned, I did a review of the issue and found out that they did not complete the assessment before taking a decision.
“The attention of the management was called to it to re-evaluate to listen to the CVR and FDR before you take a decision when it is not clear as to what decision to have taken. This is because when you talk of serious incident and accident, you need serious clarification to be able to determine, which decision to take.
“It is in that determination, but my team did not have enough information and they determined it to be serious incident, but after listening to the CVR and FDR, they later found out that it was an incident, but not a serious incident.”
The AIB Commissioner also talked about the progression in the pursuit of the President’s National safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) Bill starting that engagement is over 96% and all the key agencies have shown interest especially as the Bill is coming direct from the President.
He said, “Since the public hearing at the National Assembly, there has been a lot of consultations taking place and that happened till the end of my first term. From next week (this week), I will re-engage the consultation with major stakeholders and the consultation side is about 96 per cent done and it is just to finish up with it within the next two weeks and passed it to the National Assembly.
“You must understand that the NSIB Bill is an executive bill sponsored by the executive and it is not a private bill. The bill was debated at the Federal Executive Council and it was approved by Mr. President before it was sent to the National Assembly. I guess these stakeholders you are talking about are still under the presidency and this bill is not AIB, bill but it was the initiative of the presidency.
“If a minister takes a decision, is there any need to consult any agencies under him again? It is not done. The heads of these agencies were at the FEC meeting and a circular was circulated to that effect on the bill proposal and if there had been any objection, it will have been made known,” he surmised.
