By IPS Correspondents
LAGOS, Nov 13 1996 (IPS)

The snail-pace rescue and search operation following the recent crash of a Nigerian airliner has heightened once again the need for measures to revamp the aviation industry.

The memories of the Boeing 727 crash last week in which all 143 people died, is still fresh for Nigerians as the search for the ‘black box’ continues in a lagoon near here.

According to the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), concrete measures must be taken urgently by government to protect the aviation industry.

“Government should also consider as a matter of urgency, the need to set up immediately, a good maintenance base for aircraft in the country so that we can be sure of the technical state of aircraft in our airspace,” Chukwuka Iloeje, Vice President of NAAPE told a press conference late Tuesday.

The pilot of the ill-fated flight, Dafe Sama, was NAAPE’s President.

“We demand that henceforth, all aviation accidents resulting in death be open to public inquiries. This is in order to afford the nation the opportunity to fully x-ray our aviation industry,” Iloeje, an aeronautical engineer, said.

The last time such a public enquiry was held was in 1983 after the crash of a Nigeria Airways F-28 plane in the Eastern coal city of Enugu.

In the past 26 years, Nigeria has recorded 46 plane crashes and hundreds of airplane emergencies — there were 32 in 1991 alone. Thursday’s crash of ADC flight 086 is the 47th and the worst.

The fatalities have given rise to a growing concern about the safety of air travel and the inadequacy of aviation equipment in Nigerian airports.

At a workshop in Abuja last August, participants heard that Nigeria falls far short of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) requirement for a Search and Rescue mission (SAR).

ICAO, a specialised UN body requires each country to have the capacity to maintain a 24-hour SAR service. This means the availability of aircraft, helicopters, training of communication personnel, purchase of communication and fire fighting equipment, sea vessels and hospital as well as first aid facilities.

Nigeria needs 40 billion Naira or 50 million U.S. dollars to bring its SAR operations up to standard. But the country’s Transport Minister Ibrahim Gumel, told the August workshop that the government does not have the money needed to update its system.

Instead, Gumel, said, Nigeria will have to make do with available resources, pooling from the security and aviation services.

“This will involve an institutionalised arrangement that can command rapid deployment of men and material to any accident scene to effectively contain damage and destruction of lives and property,” Gumel said. “We stand to gain more if we seek optimal utilisation of available resources.”

These resources however failed after the crash of Flight 086 last Thursday. For more than 24 hours, the rescue operation was delayed by a combination of two factors — difficulty in locating the actual point of the crash and lack of equipment.

Most of the equipment needed for the rescue, which is still going on in the swamps of the expansive Lagos lagoon, have been provided by oil companies and multi-national construction companies. The security forces are also involved.

The delay in finding the parts of the plane and the remains of the dead, which included Claude Ake, renowned activist, author and professor of political economy, 30 foreign nationals, and Nigerian men, women and children, is taking its toll on the families of the deceased.

Families and friends wait from dawn till dusk at the rescue site, some 60 kilometres north of here.

“I just want to see his body,” one former journalist who lost his elder brother in the crash told IPS. “At the rate things are going, we may never find any victim…”

NAAPE officials insist that government’s acceptance of the Association’s recommendations could minimise air disasters.

The recommendations include the immediate overhaul of the Directorate of Safety Regulation (DSRAM) and the Accident Investigation Bureau to “ensure that only qualified, experienced and dedicated professionals are involved”.

NAAPE also insists that the “current ad hoc search and rescue (service) is unacceptable” and must be replaced by the creation of a search and rescue organisation.

A good maintenance base for aircraft is also important “so that we can be sure of the technical state of aircraft in our air space,” NAAPE added.

It has called on the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria to ground the fleet of any airline whose mode of operation is suspect.

Reliable sources at the Authority confirmed to IPS that such decisions have had to be taken, citing the reduction in the number of airlines’ planes flying on the domestic service by 67 percent in the the past 10 years.

The absence of up-to-date air traffic control equipment is also one of the problems plaguing the aviation industry. The fact that it took nearly 24 hours for the scene of last Thursday’s crash to be located is a pointer to the dearth of such equipment.

Nigeria’s airports are fitted with primary radars, which according to Sani Baba, former managing director of the Aviation Authority, have a limited radar span covering only a few kilometres within the areas of their location.

Baba said the authority needed 9.5 billion naira or more than 10 million dollars to install the required 11 secondary radars to augment the existing six primary radars. Secondary radars, he said, are more advanced and effective.

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