The United States Federal Aviation Administration ,FAA is expected in Nigeria this month to audit the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA and one of its domestic airlines Medview to ascertain if the country is still worthy to hold the category one status issued the country in 2010.
The US category one status is an evidence that Nigeria and its airlines are safe to operate into the US after meeting their standards and operating procedures, SARPS.
Nigeria lost the US category one status in1993 after the June 12 elections, got it back after 17 years in 2010 and since then, a nigerian airline Arik Air had been operating to the US without any problems until the airline left the route due to financial issues of unpaid debts.
At a media briefing in Lagos, Spokesman for the NCAA, Mr. Sam Adurogboye said the visit of the US 4-man team is to find out if the country’s regulatory agency which does same work as the FAA still maintained its standards and requirements for a safe flight operations to still hold the category one status.
He noted that the US FAA had earlier sent a checklist of areas to give attention which include the 8 critical areas, “legislation,aircraft operations, regulations, licensing, continuous surveillance, technical staff, quality and training,organization,technical guidance tools and resolution of safety concerns”.
According to Adurogboye, the NCAA is expected to complete the International Aviation Safety Assessment,IASA checklist and ICAO guidance material and returned before the team’s arrival.
” the team will assess the CAA’s compliance with sections of the ICAO standards and recommended practices,SARPS as contained in Annexes 1,6 part 1 and 8,which are general policies,procedures and definitions, approved maintenance organization and operation(flights)”.
He said meetings had been held in readiness for the exercise to ensure a successful outing as the authority’s standing audit team had swung into action.
According to him, “DG has therefore activated the authority standing audit team and they have swung into action and has assured Nigerians that the NCAA would acquit itself successfully as usual”.
The US assessment officials are expected to arrive the country on the 20th of this month and during the one week assessment, there will be a visit to the maintenance organization of the domestic airline to be audited.
“The FAA team will visit the maintenance organization of Medview Airlines and any other necessary airline operator”.
Mr. Adurogboye also made know that there would be a debriefing at the end of the exercise and a written report would be sent from the FAA headquarters to NCAA through the US embassy.
