The Senate Committee on Aviation applauded the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) over operation suspension slammed on AZMAN Airline on Monday this week .
The NCAA however allayed fears of air travellers on airworthiness of aircrafts in the fleet of Arik Airline.
Giving reasons for the suspension of AZMAN Airline during an interface with the Senate Committee on Aviation at the National Assembly , the Director General of NCAA, Captain Musa Shuaibu Nuhu said maintenance guidelines in the sector were not being followed by the airline operator.
According to him, NCAA had in the early hours of March 16, suspended operations of AZMAN airline for failure to comply with aviation safety guidelines and adherence to maintenance practice of its aircrafts.
“We invited their people to come and sit with us, we discussed, we thought we had resolved the issue, but there was a fine against the airline and the captain.
“We did not want to ground them then, and we had to let them go.
“But on Feb 16 this year, the same aircraft landed in Lagos, the weather was bad and it had a significant tyre failure, and damage to the engine and the fuselage of the aircraft.
“At that point because of the level of the damage to the aircraft, it now became the responsibility of the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB )whose responsibility it is to investigate serious aircraft accident and incident.
“The airline kept having the same maintenance issues, and it was of concern to me that the aircraft kept having issues.
” It will be irresponsible and criminal negligence on our own part not to take any action.
“I hate grounding any airline, it is a lot of money for the operator and it is going to cause a lot of inconvenience for a lot of air travellers, but it will be criminal not to take action.
“It is not to kill the airline but to work with it to see what the problems are and resolve them so that they can become a safe airline where we can recommend people to comfortably go and fly,” he said.
He added that the lifting of suspension of the airline would be determined pending the conclusion of a full financial, safety, security, operations and maintenance audit of the airline.
On controversy surrounding construction of two airports in Sagamu and Wasinmi in Ogun State,Musa said available records at the disposal of NCAA indicate that approval was given for construction of a cargo airport in Shagamu.
He, however, said he only heard of the approval for an airport for Wasinmi, saying that there was no documented records available to the NCAA on Wasinmi airport.
But when asked on airworthiness of aircrafts in the fleet of Arik Airlines , the NCAA boss said, based on checks carried out on them recently, they are airworthy.
In his response , Chairman of the committee, Senator Smart Adeyemi said the decision of NCAA to suspend the operations of AZMAN Airline was tenable given the maintenance and safety issues emanating from the investigation of NCAA .
He said the committee would still write and prevail on Federal Government to see the need to provide further bailout for the aviation sector.
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