……inadequate manpower and equipment bane of accident investigation….AIB chief
The Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB, has sent to the presidency 4 final accident investigation reports for approval.
Commissioner, AIB, Akin Olateru who disclosed this at the Aviation Safety Roundtable quarterly event in Lagos said the four final reports includes that of Dana airline, S92 Bristow helicopters, Damon 42 and OAS, all crashes which happened at different times spanning over four years.
He said getting out these final reports was not easy as the bureau lacked the manpower and other logistics to achieve quick accident investigation conclusions.
The commissioner said currently 37 accident investigation is pending with the bureau due to manpower problem and other challenges.
He said, “37 pending accident investigation, 4 reports are on it way to the president, Dana , S92 Bristow, Damon 42, OAS by next week we are making an official report on it, before the end of this year by the special grace of God, we must release a minimum of 10, that is my challenge and that is what I really want to do because its about making things happen, it is not about stories, it’s not just going to work, there must be a big paradigm shift in the way we do things”.
He observed that the industry records helicopter incidents than fixed wings but the bureau do not have helicopter pilot or engineers to effectively deal with these investigations.
According to him, it would be difficult to conclude any investigation without the manpower and facilitates.
Human capital like I said is very serious, in AIB for instance we have only one and a half pilot, I always joke about it, that is one just fresh from school, is that the kind of manpower that can actually investigate accident , we have more helicopter incidents than fixed wings incidents but yet we don’t have one single helicopter pilot or engineer, we don’t have engineer that knows anything about helicopter in AIB .these are issues am taking up with the honourable minister and he is happy to support us, because you need to strengthen the house first , you need to sort out the house first before you can turn out results, we are not going to sit down fold our hands, yes, there are making things and pushing to get”.he added.
Mr. Olateru said in the event of accidents, the bureau is always in the dark because there is no emergency response plan and no control room for effective communication, adding that the attitude of the staff to work is also a big problem.
We don’t even have an emergency response plan in AIB, who do you call when you need a crane , we don not know, am not going to deceive anybody here but we are address, we had a management meeting and I ask my people tell me what number are you going to call when you see an aircraft crash , half of my people did not know, yet it is on our website, is not going to work, if you don’t know the number to call, so we need to simplify our processes , we do not have a control room in AIB, once is 4 pm-5pm the office shuts down, everybody goes, I may them realize most accidents happen at night or weekends, so we must have a functioning control room that is going to be equipped , we have to be there on time , we must have radio , we must monitor what is going on , there must be people monitoring that room 24/7 , do not sit back and wait for people to call you , reporting accident is another issue , we have to make it seamless, simplify our process”.
