How to reduce increasing rate of air crashes, by experts
How to reduce increasing rate of air crashes, by experts
Experts in the aviation sector have called on the Federal Government to take urgent steps in addressing poor communication between cockpit and the control tower, loss of situational awareness and , lack of training, poor facilities, fatigue, flight crew judgment and maintenance personnel in order to reduce the rate of air crashes.
These factors, the experts said, constitute human factor contributions to air disaster, if left unchecked will threaten passengers' confidence in travel.
President of National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), Engineer Abayomi Agoro and
representative of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Akin George spoke at the weekend on ways of preventing human factors in air accidents in a conference put together by Nigeria's Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB).
Speaking on poor communication between cockpit and control tower, Agoro decried poor communication and training on new facilities were needed to improve the situation in the air space.
He explained that airlines are not compliant with some of the new technologies introduced and even staff are not gone through their training.
Agoro said, “The issue of communication has been something we have been calling on the government and NAMA as a service provider to do more on it. The poor communication is not only from the ground equipment at times also it is from the air stations but most of the time these are some things that can degenerate to incidents or accidents.
“Even now that we have data exchange which has to do with the CPDLC not all the airlines are compliant with that and not all the controllers have gone through the training so definitely, it’s one of the areas we have to look critically into to prevent human factors we are talking about.
Buttressing his point on paucity of communication, Representative of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Akin George said the communication system in Nigeria is best described as weak.
He said,” The communication system in Nigeria is quite weak; this has been a recurring problem for the last 10-15 years. Solutions have been put in, we take one step forward and within a month or two we are back to the norm.
“We have been talking on human factors today and we know one of the critical elements is communication, if you cannot communicate with your controller; then who is controlling who? As of today the communication between aircraft and the services coming out of Kano to Lagos is extremely weak. If you happen to be operating from the eastern side of the country, coming out of Calabar or Uyo, Port get Harcourt and you’re heading towards Kano, it’s extremely weak, in most cases you have to get another aircraft to rely on your information.
“Now whilst all this is going on the aircraft does not stay in one place and so you have a dynamic situation which for me, remains high risk and that is one of the areas we need to tackle as soon as possible in order to reduce the risk. “
He explained that airlines are not compliant with some of the new technologies introduced and even staff are not gone through their training.
Agoro said, “The issue of communication has been something we have been calling on the government and NAMA as a service provider to do more on it. The poor communication is not only from the ground equipment at times also it is from the air stations but most of the time these are some things that can degenerate to incidents or accidents.
“Even now that we have data exchange which has to do with the CPDLC not all the airlines are compliant with that and not all the controllers have gone through the training so definitely, it’s one of the areas we have to look critically into to prevent human factors we are talking about.
Buttressing his point on paucity of communication, Representative of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Akin George said the communication system in Nigeria is best described as weak.
He said,” The communication system in Nigeria is quite weak; this has been a recurring problem for the last 10-15 years. Solutions have been put in, we take one step forward and within a month or two we are back to the norm.
“We have been talking on human factors today and we know one of the critical elements is communication, if you cannot communicate with your controller; then who is controlling who? As of today the communication between aircraft and the services coming out of Kano to Lagos is extremely weak. If you happen to be operating from the eastern side of the country, coming out of Calabar or Uyo, Port get Harcourt and you’re heading towards Kano, it’s extremely weak, in most cases you have to get another aircraft to rely on your information.
“Now whilst all this is going on the aircraft does not stay in one place and so you have a dynamic situation which for me, remains high risk and that is one of the areas we need to tackle as soon as possible in order to reduce the risk. “
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