Nigerian airports are currently in danger of a major disaster over the presence of some unbelievably outdated tools.
Murtala Muhammed International Airport
It has been revealed that air traffic controllers in the country
are currently finding it difficult using some of the outdated
navigational aids at airports nationwide.
According to The Guardian, the equipment, some of which were
installed in the 1980s, have either completely gone bad or are
malfunctioning at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA),
Lagos, the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja and
others.
The Guardian learnt that the country is constantly at the risk of
air disasters due to poor communication between air traffic controllers
and pilots flying both domestic and international aircraft into the
airports.
A navigational aid (navaid) or Aid to Navigation (ATON) is any
device external to a vessel or aircraft specifically intended to assist
navigators in determining their position or safe course, or to warn them
of dangers or obstructions to navigation.
The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) says the situation
persists, not for lack of new navigational aids to replace the old ones,
but lack of funds to install modern tools purchased more than one year
ago.
A peep into NAMA’s warehouse at its headquarters in Lagos showed
there were in stock new equipment, including Instrument Landing System
(ILS), for the four major airports that were acquired over a year ago
and were already downgrading for lack of use. An ILS enables aircraft to
land if the pilots are unable to establish visual contact with the
runway. It does this by way of transmitted radio signals.
The Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation, Capt. Bala
Na’allah, recently complained about the poor navigational aids and
challenges the pilots are facing trying to establish effective
communication with the control towers, especially for landing.
Na’allah, who flew his colleagues in the Senate to Lagos for a
crucial meeting with the aviation regulators, lamented the poor radio
network and the fact that it had dragged on for too long.
The lawmaker, who noted that so much money had been invested in
radio network in the last couple of years, said it was unacceptable that
communications were still ineffective, compared to similar services in
Lome, Niamey, Accra and other African airports.
The President of the Nigeria Air Traffic Controllers Association
(NATCA), Victor Eyaru, said his members had lately been creating
awareness on the bad state of infrastructure, but were yet to get the
attention of the authorities concerned.
According to him, the poor communication has remained a nightmare
to both pilots and air controllers, and its resolution will save the
country the embarrassment the current epileptic system is causing.
Eyaru said that though the nation was passing through recession,
the provision of certain critical infrastructure that would aid the
delivery of compact services must not be treated with levity.
The Acting Managing Director of NAMA, Emma Anasi, explained that
the radio network in question was designed in 1980s. It was actually a
donation by the European Union to Nigeria commissioned in eight
locations in 1994. It was to help establish Very High Frequency (VHF)
coverage on the routes that were operational in the 1980s and 1990s.
Anasi said: “The Abuja and Port Harcourt routes were not in
operation at that time. Since then, we have not been able to establish
new routes, except one. With the increasing number of flights and the
new routes, the VHF system is not able to give us the kind of coverage
we should have.
“Subsequently, during the airport remodeling (by the last
administration) the remote station in Jos was decommissioned and still
remains so till date. So, when we say we have problems, there are
reasons.”
He added that NAMA, in 2002, developed a project to take care of
these gaps. It planned to have the network expanded in 2006 to
accommodate more airports but the contract was not approved until 2009.
When it was approved, it was not funded until last year.
Anasi said the agency was not unaware of the problems with navaids,
and had already taken the delivery of new tools for the international
airports, with extended coverage of Minna and Jos routes.
“If we are able to deploy the equipment, we will withdraw the
current ones for use in other airports where we either have issues or
don’t have any at all.
“The (65 million Euros worth of) Total Radar Coverage of
Nigeria system (TRACON) is working well. Our engineers have been
maintaining it so effectively in the last two years. But the issue we
are having is that it is a technology that is changing with time and we
still have to lean on the manufacturers to get the spares.”
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