Dangerous Airspace

Air traffic controllers in Nigeria have said that if not for their ingenuity, no plane would be flying in the country’s airspace.

The controllers, who spoke strictly on the condition of anonymity said that the CNS-ATM (Communication, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management) in Nigeria is ineffective.

The main function of the CNS-ATM, they said, is to enable the controllers maintain communication with any aircraft that is flying in the country’s airspace.

According to them, there are breaks in communication in many flight routes in the country.

The air management officials, however, recommended that the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) should take over the management of airstrips in the country.

NAMA officials, they said, are in a better position to effectively interpret changes and differences in the weather.

The controllers revealed that there are some airstrips in the country where pilots land on their own judgment aided by instruments on board the aircraft because they are not covered by the nation’s airspace communication system.

They also explained that it is not the duty of NAMA, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) or Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) to find any missing aircraft; it is the duty of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

Commenting on the missing Beechcraft 1900D owned by Wings Aviation, which disappeared on a 51-minute flight from Lagos to Obudu Cattle Ranch on March 15, they said that if the country had effective and full radar coverage, the position of the aircraft would have been picked before it disappeared.

They said the radar would have picked the aircraft the last time it was in the air before it disappeared.

This, they said, would have helped to look for it because recorded images from the radar would have revealed the point it disappeared, a piece of information that would have been pivotal in the search.

According to the controllers, NAMA is yet to complete the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON), which is aimed at picking any aircraft in the nation’s sky.

Substantial aspects of the project have been completed in Lagos and Abuja, but the primary radar, which is a significant component of the complete radar, is yet to be installed and experts say that when that component is installed any aircraft entering the nation’s airspace would be picked immediately and its location revealed.

Meanwhile, NEMA has said that the agency would solicit the assistance of advanced nations like the United States to ensure that the Beechcraft 1900D aircraft was found.

Reports say NEMA technical officers manning the Nigerian Mission Control Centre claim that the missing aircraft had not shown up in their system ever since it was declared missing.

After reading this report in the local press am compelled to risk my life on our pothole-riddled roads than patronise operators of these 'flying coffins'.

What are the estacode-conscious 'ogas' doing in the office when they ought to fix these problems promptly?