[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Commissioner, Banjul Accord Group Accident Investigation Agency (BAGAIA) Engr. Charles Irikefe Erhueh, the collective safety recommendations issued after the Investigation of each aircraft incident and/or accident are being heeded, thus the recording of minimal major air accidents in the region.
Engineer Erhueh made this known in Abuja at the closing of a peer review programme hosted by the Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) in collaboration with the European Union (EU), EASA/ BAGAIA. Nigeria has been chosen as a pilot for the peer review in the BAG Region.
The programme is aimed at boosting the capability of Agencies in the Investigation of Civil Aviation Accidents and Serious Incidents.
He said the programme would enable Member States to meet their safety Regulations and ICAO Annex 13 requirements.
“One important achievement of BAGAIA in the last few years has been zero accident/hull losses in our individual airspaces. This has improved our collective safety records and has removed our airlines from various blacklists worldwide.
“This means our individual and collective safety recommendations are being heeded, and they are helping to create a safer Airspace.â€
He further stated, ‘We will also look at how we can infuse technology to make our primary responsibility seamless and also ensure we have well-trained investigators who will midwife a new set of investigators into the field to create capacity that will replace our fast-aging breed of professionals.
“In the past few days our commitment towards a safer sky for our states, the BAG region, and indeed the globe has not waiver as whatever we do here will resound in the echoes of time and have a safety impact on generations to come,†Erhueh noted.
He also noted these actions have aided the continent, particularly referring to the assistance rendered to Sierra Leone to scale its safety audit in July 2023.
“Also, note that this assistance of BAGAIA to the region recently in the case of Sierra Leone has boosted their Effective Implementation (EI) in AIG from 0% to about 39.76% while the total EI is from 16% to about 74.22% in the just concluded ICAO USOAP as this is a huge feat to the BAG Region.
“However, this does not give us the temerity to rest on our oars, if anything we must be more committed to research and provide more safety recommendations to aid the industry.
He noted that the BAGAIA Peer Review objectives are:“(i) Assisting individual BAGAIA AIA’s in establishing a capability for the investigation of civil aviation accidents and serious incidents.
“(ii)Verifying that investigations are conducted by a permanent national AIA in an effective and independent manner. (iii)Spreading best practices across AIA’s and the harmonization of practices where multiple AIA are involved.
“(v) As well as helping States to meet the requirements of the “BAGAIA Safety Investigation Regulationsâ€.
Also speaking, the Director General-NSIB, Engr. Akin Olateru says the partnership entered with BAGAIA said the entirety of it all was safety through collaboration.
“What has been happening since Monday is basically in two parts, one is to do what we call peer review. Peer review is to benchmark systems, processes, and procedures to help us see how we do things here and how we can improve the way we do things. This part of the programme is to see how we can improve and benchmark our systems, processes, and procedures with the EU standards.
“Now the second part is to train our investigators on how to carry out peer review so that we can help other nations, and at the end of the day, this is to enhance safety, not just in Nigeria, but the entire African region. This programme is basically for collaboration. You know aviation is all about collaboration. This is the only way we can ensure consistency in maintaining that safety record,†he stated.