AIB reviews regulations to improve Nigeria’s aviation safety

The Accident Investigation Bureau has concluded the review of its regulations, aimed at increasing aviation safety in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the two-day exercise was concluded on Friday in Lagos with inputs from stakeholders drawn from aviation, law enforcement, insurance and the judiciary.
AIB Commissioner Akin Olateru said the review of AIB Regulations 2016, was necessitated by the need to conform with changes in global aviation.
Olateru said: “This is the way we can learn and grow the industry because we don’t know it all.
“We can only work together as a team and I believe that together we can build a more vibrant sector.
“We owe it to ourselves to contribute and add value to the system to make the aviation sector profitable.”
Olateru maintained that the purpose of accident investigation was not to apportion blame but to unravel the root cause, in order to prevent its recurrence.
The commissioner noted that the AIB was critical to safety and required adequate funding to discharge its statutory responsibilities.
He also appealed to other aviation agencies to continue to cooperate with the bureau to achieve safer skies that would encourage more Nigerians to embrace air travel.
Also speaking, Capt. Muhtar Usman, Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, lauded the contributions of the AIB in improving safety through the issuance of safety recommendations.
Usman said: “Out of a total of 37 safety recommendations that were issued to the NCAA, 29 were fully implemented, two partially implemented and one yet to be implemented.
“On the remaining five, the NCAA did not agree with the safety recommendations and had provided reasons.
“Recently, the NCAA had forwarded the status of implementation of the three outstanding safety recommendations to the committee.
“The safety recommendations that the NCAA had implemented had assisted in improving our processes, led to the development of new ones and amendment of existing procedures.
“It had also led to amendment of regulatory requirements and overall strengthening of our safety oversight obligations.”
He noted that the NCAA was willing and ready to cooperate and continuously improve the existing partnership with the bureau to ensure safe skies within Nigeria.