Sources told Daily Trust that many international airlines avoid over flying Nigeria’s airspace because their pilots are finding it difficult to communicate with air traffic controllers due to poor equipment and facilities in the aviation sector.
Documents leaked to Daily Trust indicate serious safety crisis in the nation’s airspace, with the foreign airlines avoiding it to due to the lack of Controller-Pilot-Data-Link-Communication (CPDLC).
But the Ministry of Aviation and Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) insist that the airspace is “super safe” and that the number of over flyers (aircrafts that pass through the nation’s airspace to other destinations) has actually increased in the last six months.
The official position contrasts sharply with the contents of many reports that detail a litany of concerns over obsolete communication equipment that make the nation’s airspace unsafe and force over flyers to shun it.
Daily Trust has copies of incidents’ reports sent to NAMA’s Managing Director Nnamdi Udoh on July 9 and 12, 2012 from Kano Flight Information Region (FIR), covering the entire northern states and parts of Chad and Niger Republics, alerting him of the “deteriorating quality and reception of Kano Area Control Centre frequencies 124.1MHz & 128.5MHz thereby making pilots/controllers communication terribly bad” in the region.
On Monday, July 9 this year, according to one of the reports, “Kano West failed completely (and) could not get aircraft even overhead ‘KAN’”.
On Tuesday, July 10, “reception improved to about 200NM on 124.1MHz which fell short of expected coverage area of at least ‘MIU’ (Maiduguri) to the east and ‘OBUDU’ to the southeast of Kano,” the report said.
Some of the airlines (over flyers) currently avoiding Nigerian air space, according to the report, are Air France’s AFR 889 from Kinshasa to Paris, AFR 995 from Johannesburg to Paris, AFR 900 from Yaoundé to Paris, AFR 928 from Luanda to Paris, AFR 896 from Brazzaville to Paris; British Airways’ BAW 55K from London to Johannesburg; and Air Namibia’s NMB 286 from Frankfurt to Windhoek.
Others are Emirates’ UAE 261 from Dubai to Sao Paulo, UAE 247 from Dubai to Rio De Janeiro; Qatari’s QTR 922 from Sao Paulo to Doha; Belgian Airline’s BEL 357 from Brussels to Kinshasa; and South African Airways’ SAA 237 from London to Johannesburg, SAA 260 from Johannesburg to Frankfurt, SAA 261 from Frankfurt to Johannesburg, SAA 264 from Johannesburg to Munich and SAA 265 from Munich to Johannesburg.
Another document, which was reportedly presented to the Minister of Aviation Stella Oduah by the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), dated 20 July 2012 with reference number NUATE/NP/00I/28/05/2K12, provided details of the danger posed by obsolete gadgets to aviation safety in the country.
“There are several cases where aircraft enter into Nigerian airspace unnoticed until neighbouring airspace notifies us through telephone etc, e.g. Ndjamena (Chad),” the report said.
It claimed that air traffic controllers on duty “sometimes watch helplessly whenever aircrafts are near collision and cannot provide air traffic control due to inability to communicate.”
Other documents in Daily Trust’s possession claimed that even the 20.6 million euro (N4.07 billion) Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) facility has never worked since its commissioning by President Goodluck Jonathan two years ago.
“Our neighbouring airspace has such facilities, which is probably why over flyers prefer using their airspace even though longer destinations,” one of the reports said.
A report of a fact-finding committee of the National Association of Air traffic Engineers (NAAE) on the aviation sector, inaugurated on 23 September 2011, said the TRACON project was actually commissioned by President Jonathan on 18 October 2010 while it was running on “test mode” and not fully operational.
On November 2011, air traffic controllers and safety engineers told a ministerial committee visiting one of the TRACON sites in Lagos that the TRACON simulator “has never worked and the supplied VHS radios (are) not of the required capacity.”
A veteran air traffic controller with over 20 years’ experience, who spoke to Daily Trust on condition of anonymity, said the TRACON project “was not completed when it was commissioned”.
The air controller said that even communication equipment at the Kano Flight Information Region/Area Control Centre (FIR/ACC), which covers over 75 per cent of Nigerian airspace, are obsolete and in deplorable condition, leading to lack of communication with aircraft overflying the Kano FIR.
“The satellite communication equipments in Kano FIR/ACC are obsolete because they have been installed more than 20 years ago. Also, there has never been any major overhaul of the equipments since their installation,” the air controller said.
Another source told Daily Trust that “despite complaints by the air controllers to the dilapidating state of the equipments and its fatal implications to the flying public, both the NAMA MD/CEO and the minister of aviation” failed to take effective measures to address the issue.
“Super safe”
But both the aviation minister and NAMA’s chief executive have dismissed the allegations, insisting that Nigeria’s airspace is not only “super safe” and “secure”, but that the number of foreign airlines over flying it has actually increased in the last six months.
The aviation minister’s media aide Joe Obi told Daily Trust that it is “incorrect to insinuate or suggest that foreign airlines are refusing to fly into the Nigerian airspace for whatever reason”.
“The country’s airspace recorded 5 per cent increase on international air traffic movement within the last six months and there are strong indications that this figure will double as more foreign airlines are billed to commence operation into the country as well as over flyers,” he said.
“For the umpteenth time, we wish to re-emphasise that the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON), as conceived and scoped, has been successfully executed, closed out and running at optimal capacity to the delight of the airspace users,” he added.
“There is nothing like VHS. TRACON came with an emergency VHF Radio at inception with minimum TMA coverage range. This is deployed when main communication fails.
“The simulation at the Lagos TRACON site is working perfectly and currently being used to train air traffic controllers on Area Radar Control.”
Similarly, he said, “NAMA does not have a satellite communication system in isolation, but in sub-regional network known as AFISNET comprising of other Flight Information Regions.
“However this network is being replaced by a new network under the AIS automation project. The AIS automation project has 26 node MFDMA VSAT Network. This will serve as backbone for air-to-air and ground-to-ground communication,” Mr Obi added.
NAMA’s managing director too insisted that there is “effective radar coverage of Nigeria’s airspace” and that airlines did not shun it.
“The report that foreign airlines have shunned the nation’s airspace over safety concerns is nothing but a lie,” he told journalists late last month.
“Statistics available showed that the frequency of international aircraft movement increased by 12.8 per cent from January to June 2012 over the same period last year. Revenue from over-flyers increased by 5 per cent resulting in 8 per cent increase in passenger movement over Nigerian airspace,” he said.
Mr Udoh blamed some employees of NAMA, whom he said were too junior to comprehend the workings of the agency, of misleading the public.
“A NAMA staff who was recently promoted to level 12 by this administration feels the best reward for the agency is to mislead the public with false information regarding our operations, and portray its management in bad light,” he alleged.
“The National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) is a junior staff association, therefore they could lack the information on the workings of the agency and the efforts the management has put in place to address various challenges in the nation’s airspace,” he added.
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