In 14 days, the country has witnessed three runway excursions in two international airports. So far, this year, there have been no fewer than 10 reported incidents. This has raised serious worries and safety concerns among experts and passengers. GODFREY GEORGE writes that safer airspace, better navigational tools and equipment are needed to prevent a repeat of the 2005 black era when aircrafts were falling from the sky like raindrops, leaving families devastated.
Five solid years was how long it took 36-year-old Shola (surname withheld) to conceive after her marriage in 2016.
After two failed IVFs (in vitro fertilisation), she eventually took in naturally in April 2021.
Everyone was overjoyed and her husband threw a small party for her in July.
Out of excitement, in her third month (first trimester) when her baby bump was yet visible, Shola said she started ‘rocking’ her boubous in preparation.
“I had waited so long for the baby,” she said when our correspondent paid her a visit on Monday evening in Ogudu, Lagos, where she resides.
One Friday, still in the same third month, her joy was cut short – she lost her baby in the most unexpected circumstance.
Shola, who works as an event planner and cake maker, said she boarded a flight from Lagos to Abuja to follow through on a wedding job she took up before taking in.
“I decided to follow it through with the mindset that it would be my last job till the baby arrives,” she said looking somewhat downcast.
Sadly, the baby never got to take its first breath or make a grand entry with a shrill.
On the morning before the wedding, after setting up the venue, she handed everything over to her assistant, Stella Obasi, who was quite independent to carry on without her and hopped on the next available flight to Ilorin, to surprise her husband, who was already in the Kwara State capital for his mother’s 70th birthday.
Shola boarded an Air Peace aircraft from Abuja with 65 other passengers and six crew members, but the tyres burst after landing at the Ilorin International Airport.
“I heard a loud bang and the plane bounced thrice or more and began to quake. I thought I was going to die. I just held on to my belly, closed my eyes tightly and muttered some prayers,” she said, still visibly shaken from the incident.
According to her, the time was around 10.42 am or thereabouts, adding that the flight was taxiing to the aircraft ramps on the tarmac when the incident occurred.
Air Peace’s spokesperson, Stanley Olise, said no one was hurt, adding that all 72 persons aboard the ill-fated B737-500 aircraft with the registration number 5N-BQR disembarked safely.
Also, the Accident Investigation Bureau, the investigating body in charge of all aviation-related disasters or happenings in Nigeria, confirmed that the incident occurred and maintained that there was no plane crash.
AIB General Manager, Public Affairs, Tunji Oketumbi, told our correspondent in 2021 that investigators evaluated the incident and won’t be investigating it.
Oketumbi said, “AIB Safety investigators did an evaluation of the occurrence and decided not to investigate. The aeroplane has been released to the operator (Airpeace). The delay in opening the airport is down to the recovery of the aeroplane from the runway by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and Air Peace. The aeroplane had a tyre burst on landing.”
A traumatised Shola went home that day but her life never remained the same.
The horrifying images of what could have happened continued to flash through her mind for days.
“Whenever I closed my eyes to sleep, I would see myself in that plane again, shouting for help. It was crazy then. I had to seek help,” she said, settling into her armchair, with her husband by her side.
A few weeks after the incident, Shola went to bathe in her Lagos home and noticed she was spotting (slight bleeding). She was alone.
Alarmed, the pregnant woman called and informed her elder sister, who drove her to the Bridge Clinic, Ikeja, where the doctors did all they could to stop the bleeding.
Sadly, it degenerated into a full-blown miscarriage that tore at her heart.
An accident too many
Shola’s experience is just one out of the many sad experiences many can relive from aircraft accidents in the country.
Meanwhile, this would not be the first time this particular airline’s aircraft would have a tyre burst.
In 2019, there was panic at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja one Sunday evening when the tyre of an Air Peace aircraft blew off and made a loud sound on the runway while taxiing for take-off.
It was gathered that passengers onboard the aircraft, which was heading to Benin, were terrified as the pilot struggled to control the aeroplane, which finally came to a halt.
Impeccable sources at the airport told our correspondent that it was a Boeing 737 aircraft belonging to Air Peace that was involved in the incident that took place at about 5:40 pm.
“The aircraft was already taxiing in preparation for take-off when suddenly, one of the tyres blew off.
“This created panic among passengers but the pilot was very professional and was able to control the plane before it was towed to a safe location,” a passenger, who simply gave his name as Johnson had told The PUNCH.
The company’s spokesperson at the time, Chris Iwarah, confirmed the development, noting that the airline’s engineers were deployed to check what happened to the aircraft.
2023 Romance with death
In less than two months this year, the aviation industry has witnessed no fewer than five incidents that involved plane crashes, plane skidding off, belly landing or runway misses.
This has raised serious worries among aviation experts, and they have expressed concerns, one of which is that the country cannot afford to have any plane crash at a time of socioeconomic turmoil.
For instance, on Tuesday, 14 November, a 900 bombardier aircraft, belonging to Value Jet, skidded off the runway at the Port Harcourt International Airport, at the Omagwa, Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State.
For the 62 passengers and five crew members on board, it was a narrow escape from death.
While confirming the incident, the airline media team revealed that the time of the incident was 3.30 pm local time, noting that the aircraft slipped on a taxi turn after landing safely and cleared off the runway.
“The CRJ 900 Bombardier aircraft with registration 5N-BXR landed Meanwhile, a passenger aboard that flight, who said he wanted to be identified as Miebaka, said he had his heart in his hands as the plane skidded off the runway.
“I was to go back to Lagos the following day but I had to postpone it to Thursday to fully heal from the trauma. This thing is really scary. If anything had happened to me, what would have happened to my family?” he queried.
Abuja crash landing
Two days before the Port Harcourt airport incident, a Boeing 737-300 aircraft with the registration number: 5N-BYQ, belonging to Aero Contractors was involved in an incident at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau stated that the incident was classified as ‘a serious accident.’
The aircraft, which departed the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, that Sunday at 10:47 am, suffered a major runway excursion after landing at the Abuja Airport.
Footage from the scene showed that the 737 Classic’s nose gear veered off the runway and got stuck in a “grass verge”, disabling it for several hours.
Additional footage showed airport officials attempting to dig the aircraft out of the grass with their hands but to no avail.
Reports suggest that it took the aviation authorities several hours to successfully dislodge and tow the aircraft away, causing considerable disruption to airlines and passengers.
The NSIB’s Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Dr James Odaudu, confirmed the incident, noting that the runway was closed until the ill-fated aircraft was towed away.
Several aircraft that intended to land in Abuja were forced to remain airborne for a while and later diverted to Kano Airport, which is approximately 400km away.
Investigations by our correspondent showed that the aircraft is a 24-year-old Boeing 737-300 that began life under former German low-cost carrier Deutsche BA.
It later flew under Air Berlin and airBaltic before joining Cally Air in April 2021.
The extent of the plane’s damage is currently unclear, but it remains grounded.
Sunday PUNCH learnt that nose gear damage is usually a straightforward repair process, and so the plane is likely to be airworthy again
Cally Air is a Nigerian carrier launched in August 2021. The airline is a joint venture between the Cross River State Government and DANA Group.
It currently serves four domestic destinations in Nigeria with a fleet of two Boeing 737-300s.
Meanwhile, as investigations into the incident continued, the NSIB called on members of the public to send information in the form of pictures, and videos of recording evidence to assist in conducting a comprehensive investigation.
The NSIB, which is a multimodal investigation agency charged with the mandate to investigate transportation accidents and serious incidents in Nigeria to identify the probable causes and proffer safety recommendations that can prevent reoccurrence, promised that it would release the preliminary report as soon as possible.
Minister aboard
In another scary incident that took place on Friday, November 3, a private HS25B aircraft operated by Flint Aero crash-landed at the Samuel Ladoke Akintola Airport, Ibadan, Oyo State.
Among the 10 passengers on board was the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu.
The flight, our correspondent learnt, had departed Abuja at 6:41 pm and crash-landed at approximately 7.21 pm, with no fatalities, although the aircraft was significantly damaged.
Our correspondent learnt that the pilot had been cleared for an RNAV approach to Runway 22, before the unfortunate incident.
A visit to Ibadan Airport
Our correspondent on his visit to the Ibadan airport on Tuesday learnt that the Samuel Ladoke Akintola Airport in Ibadan, Oyo State, has a history of flights landing after sunset, despite not having field lighting and instrument landing systems, also known as ILS.
International industry standards stipulate that airports must have these safety facilities, which must be in good condition at all times.
The airport’s runway is approximately 2.4 km long, operating under Visual Flight Rules and not requiring additional ground landing instruments, which are essential in turbulent areas known for bad weather.
Controversy over landing aids
However, another senior official at the airport, who did not want his name in print as he was not permitted to speak to the press, claimed that the absence of landing aids was not responsible for the Friday accident.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria indicated that there were night take-offs and landings between 2021 and 2023, which challenged the idea that the lack of airfield lighting and ILS might have caused the crash.
Our correspondent’s findings showed that between January 2021 and November 2023 date, a total of 136 night take-offs and landings were recorded between 6 pm and 9 pm, 9 pm and 12 am, and 12 am and 6 am local time.
A breakdown showed that in 2021, 19 take-offs/landings between 6 pm and 9 pm and three take-offs between 9 pm and 12 am were recorded.
In 2022, 62 take-off/landings were recorded between 6 pm and 9 pm, with 10 between 9 pm and 12 am and one between 12 am and 6 am.
In 2023, so far, 30 landings/take-offs have been recorded between 6 pm and 9 pm, with 11 between 9 am and 12 am.
Also, the source added that runway lighting systems were on during the accident.
The Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Kabir Mohammed, said a two-hour extension of aerodrome operation was sought and duly granted by the Airspace Manager, for which diesel was specially procured in reserve for the unscheduled operation, and the Runway Lighting System was on at the time of the aircraft’s arrival, which prompted the Air Traffic Control to give clearance for landing to the pilot.
He also stated that the ATC reported the loss in communication with the pilot shortly after landing in the bush before getting to the paved area of the runway, suggesting a likelihood of air mishap for a yet unknown reason, but confirmed that the aircraft allegedly did not get to the landing threshold before landing and veered off into the bush.
More are expected from the NSIB investigation in the coming weeks.
NAMA accused of obsolete purchase
A day after the unfortunate accident at the Ibadan Airport, at an Aviation stakeholder meeting held in Lagos, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, said the agency in charge of the landing aids across airports in the country, the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency, have been purchasing equipment for safe air navigation.
However, he noted that it was recently discovered that the equipment was obsolete.
Keyamo said henceforth, any equipment to be purchased by NAMA must be subjected to stakeholders’ approval.
Meanwhile, at the meeting, the Director of Operations, NAMA, Mathew Pwajok, listed airports whose ILS have been calibrated, those with ongoing installations and those that have been completed; and among the airports mentioned, the Ibadan airport was conspicuously missing.
According to him, apart from the absence of the ILS, the airport also does not have an airfield lighting system which falls under the purview of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
Air traffic engineers disagree
However, the National Association of Air Traffic Engineers described as ‘false and misleading’ the report that obsolete navigational aids and the absence of an ILS at the Ibadan airport were responsible for the crash landing of the private jet conveying the Minister of Power and others to the airport
A statement by the National President of NAAE, Selzing Miri, pointed out that airports are broadly classified according to the available equipment at the airport.
“Airports are classified as Instrument Flight Rules (also known as IFR) if they have ILS, VOR, DME or any other ground-based navigational aids installed, or Visual Flight Rules where pilots operate only by visual cues for take-off and landing operations”.
Miri clarified that Ibadan Airport is a Visual Flight Rules (also called VFR) airport and does not depend on ILS or VOR or any other ground-based navigational aids for take-off and landing.
“Contrary to the initial speculation regarding the cause of the crash, the NSIB report does not attribute the incident to the absence of an ILS. Instead, it emphasises that the aircraft skidded off the runway into a nearby bush”, he explained.
Although investigations are still ongoing, the airport was reopened the next day and findings revealed that four flight operations took place at the airport.
August light crash
As July folded up and welcomed August, a light aircraft crashed and burst into flames while on a test flight in Lagos.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and no one had envisaged such a tragedy would occur.
It was learnt that the aircraft was operated by Air First Hospitality and Tours and had two passengers on board before crashing around Oba Akran, a busy area of Lagos.
According to the NSIB, which began investigations immediately, there were no fatalities,
Lagos state spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Farinloye, said two people on board were rescued alive and taken to the hospital.
UNA aircraft skids off Lagos runway in May
On Friday, May 31, weeks before the Oba Akran incident, a United Nigeria Airlines aircraft carrying 51 passengers and four crew members skidded off Runway L18, at the Lagos airport at about 6.48 pm during a downpour.
Officials from the Aerodrome Rescue and Fire Fighting Service of FAAN, who were on the ground for evacuation said there was no casualty.
Max Boeing 737-400 double tyre burst in May
Earlier, on May 7, 2023, a Boeing 737-400 ready for take-off from Yola Airport on a scheduled local service to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, had a tyre burst.
The aircraft 5N-MBD with 143 passengers onboard and registered to Max Air, was the only airline that ran a regular service between Adamawa and Abuja.
According to investigations by the West Africa Weekly, the pilots, deferring to their training, which stipulates that takeoff cannot be safely aborted after exceeding decision speed, completed the rotation sequence and got the plane into the sky before taking stock of the situation.
The nervous passengers soon began to settle down as the plane reached cruising altitude with no further incident.
The pilots figured a tyre had burst on the left side of the landing gear.
The investigation by WAW noted that “While this was a serious situation, the fact that they were already airborne gave them nearly an hour to plan for the landing in Abuja.
“In addition, the fact that the five-surviving tyres were – like all aircraft tyres – specifically designed to withstand immense weight, temperature and pressure would have given them some comfort. What they did not envisage was that five would rapidly turn into four as the plane touched the tarmac in the mid-afternoon Abuja heat.
“Another tyre explosion followed as the pilots struggled to keep the plane from veering off the runway.
“The 737’s tricycle landing system made up of six tyres had turned into a bicycle system of 4.
Terrified passengers onboard said their prayers as they watched airport fire crews rush to douse the superheated mix of molten asphalt, rubber and metal.”
Although the emergency responders from Aerodrome Rescue disembarked all aboard, this left a lot of questions in the hearts of the terrified air travellers.
Meanwhile, a former President of the Nigeria Medical Association, Dr Mike Ogirima, was on that flight.
NCAA grounds flight
The NCAA grounded the flight and the NSIB commenced an investigation, which revealed some very murky details.
However, the flight has since gone back to the air after the NCAA lifted its ban and said investigations were concluded.
Max air fails to start for takeoff
Exactly two months later, on July 7, the pilots flying another Max Air Boeing 737 with the tail identifier 5N-MHM on the same Abuja-Yola shuttle route could not get the engines started while preparing to take off from Yola due to water leakage.
Further investigation by West Africa Weekly revealed that the reason for the leakage was an auxiliary power unit shutdown caused by an excessive amount of water in the fuel tanks.
Videos of the incident online showed a bucket placed underneath the fuel tanks to trap leaking water and fuel.
Lapse runway safety, security
On February 18, 2018, cows took over a runway, preventing an Air Peace flight from landing.
This raised a lot of security concerns and questions on the safety of the runways and airport facilities.
Over time, there have been cases of runway lights being stolen at the MMIA, Lagos, and in one peculiar case, a corpse was found on runway 18R one morning in 2022.
No one, to date, has been able to explain how the mangled body got there.
In March 2022, a staff of NAMA was shot dead by bandits who invaded the Kaduna Airport.
According to reports, the bandits prevented an Azman aircraft scheduled for Lagos from taking off.
These incidents revealed the lapses and laxity in the airport security and system.
NAF crashes
The Nigerian Air Force has not been left out in all of these incidents.
It has recorded three crashes in 2023, including a belly landing but luckily without casualties.
Sixteen Air crashes were recorded between 2015 and 2023, resulting in the loss of 17 aircraft and 33 personnel.
Four air crashes were recorded in 2021 and one in 2022.
Year of yore
Nigeria is not new to air crashes. In 2005, the country lost hundreds of souls to several crashes.
One of the worst was the December 10, 2005, Sosoliso Airline 1145 that crashed in Port Harcourt.
109 passengers, including 60 students of the Jesuit Loyola College, Abuja, lost their lives.
This was after a major aviation reform, championed by former president Olusegun Obasanjo where many reports quoted him as saying the aviation sector was ‘corrupt from top to bottom’.
Passengers lament
Mr Akinkugbe Sanusi, who frequently shuttles between Abuja and Kano, and Lagos and Abuja, said he has become scared with the recent incidents of crashes and near-crashes.
“If not that I have no choice, I would completely boycott air travel for now till the sector fixes its mess,” he said.
Another passenger, Mr Efe Moses, tasked the regulatory bodies to review the causes of recent incidents and sanction airing airlines.
“On one of my trips from Abuja to Yola, the plane I boarded almost crash-landed. FAAN, NAMA and other regulators should wake up to their responsibilities,” he appealed.
NSIB reacts
However, reacting, the NSIB’s spokesperson, Tunji Oketunbi, said the recent cases of aeroplane crashes were a coincidence, adding that the Nigerian aviation space was safe for all travellers.
“All these incidents or accidents are still under investigation, so I can’t tell you anything about their causes. However, I can say that such things can happen in any climate. That does not justify such occurrences. Since we do not have the details of what happened, it would be challenging to begin to speculate.
“However, I am still confident that the Nigerian airspace or aviation industry is very safe. Thank God we didn’t record any fatalities.
“That doesn’t mean that the regulations and the operators should not up their game and tie all knots. Safety is not a thing to be complacent about but requires proactive commitments and ever-ready vigilance,” he stated.
Impossible for airlines to cut corners – Ex-NAMA DG
A former Director-General of NAMA and Chief Executive Officer of TopBrass Aviation Limited, Captain Roland Iyayi, in an interview with our correspondent, said the insinuation that the aviation industry lacked a maintenance culture was untrue.
He said when he ran an airline and operated all contracts for an oil firm, the company, besides the NCAA, audited its operations every six months.
“They’re at liberty to come in at any time to check our books. It is impossible for an airline to cut corners. No one will notice a bad tyre and not fix or change it even in cars.
“Aviation is a bit more drastic. Every time you land, there’s more wear and tear to the tyres because they get bald.
“So, you find out that the major stock in spares that airlines keep is tyres because, ever so frequently, tyres are changed regularly because if you burst out you can lose the entire aircraft.
“If a tyre blows up and there’s a rupture, the heat around the ground can cause a fire when taking off or landing. Airlines know these things and they won’t allow such a situation to happen. They carry out their maintenance regularly,” he added.
‘Nigerian airspace safe’
For Iyayi, air travel remains the safest form of transportation worldwide.
“Occasionally we can have incidents like you’ve mentioned or even accidents but thankfully we’ve never had any major accident in Nigeria for several years, even almost a decade.
“Let’s stand on the fact that the regulatory policies in the country are very poor. Again, you will find some of these things that will sort of slip through the cracks could be the cause of an incident or two. What we’ve seen in recent times is actually not the norm,” he assured.
On the cases of excursions, the expert noted that the Port Harcourt incident might have been caused by torrential rain at the time.
“The Ibadan incident, for instance, had to do with infrastructure, like runway lights, etcetera,” he added.
He also stated that Nigeria was not optimally utilizing its aircraft assets.
According to him, an aircraft is supposed to be in the air between 10 and 18 hours of the day, depending on the type of operation.
“For short-haul operation, you have 10 hours of flying. For long-haul operations, you have between 15 to 18 hours of flying on a daily basis but in Nigeria, that’s not the case.
“A good airline in Nigeria at its best uses between six and seven hours a day per aircraft. That is less than 15 per cent of the capacity of that aircraft,” he added.
Forex, JetA1 crisis
Iyayi also noted that the aviation industry was grappling with forex issues, adding that airlines borrow from Nigerian banks at 26 per cent cost of funds.
“The foreign exchange rate regime is forever fluctuating. So, what dollar is today is not what it would be tomorrow, which means the airline cannot have a long-term strategic plan,” he said.
Beyond the currency crisis, Iyayi said there was an increase in the cost of Jet A1 (aviation fuel).
“Fuel as of Thursday was about $1/litre. The cost of fuel on its own eats out of the direct cost of operating an aircraft by about 40 to 45 per cent, depending on the kind of aircraft one is operating,” he added.
Safety standards still intact – Aviation Roundtable
The Head of Business Development at Zenith Travels and the spokesman of Aviation Round Table, Olu Ohunayo, in an interview with our correspondent, said the aviation sector’s safety standards had not dropped.
He also noted that the industry did not perform badly in the last audit that was done a few weeks ago.
He further stated that FAAN, NCAA, NSIB and NiMET are all working together to address these issues.
“Although everyone is troubled, our safety standards have not dropped. We recently had an audit and we did not perform badly,” he added.
