The Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu has vowed to prevent air accidents occurrences that had been associated with human factors in the industry.
Nuhu gave the assurance during his keynote address delivered on the prevention of human factors in air accidents occurrences in Lagos on Sunday.
TBI Africa recalled that the conference was organised by the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) in partnership with the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC).
The NCAA DG said the primary responsibility of the regulator was public safety and that was why it must assure through its safety oversight and shared responsibilities with the certified entities and licensed personnel.
Nuhu said the authority would unravel the contributory factors and develop appropriate Safety Recommendations that were based on safety risk assessments and considerable cost-effectiveness.
According to him, the regulatory authorities would also enforce their implementation by certified entities and licensed personnel to prevent reoccurrence and improve safety records.
The DG said every aviation accident was a global tragedy and the industry, through the accident investigative authorities must be determined to unravel the probable causes.
Nuhu said a review of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Safety Report of 2020 shows that in 2019, globally there were a total of 114 aviation accidents, six of which were fatal with 239 fatalities.
“This 2019 global accident rate of 2.9 accidents per million departures is the highest in the previous five years and represents an increase of 12 per cent from the year 2018 figure.
“The same report shows that the African Indian Ocean (AFI) Region, to which Nigeria belongs recorded an accident rate of 2.8 accidents per million departures
“Though with one of the least estimated departures of 1.44 million representing only 3.8 per cent share of total global traffic. This is one of the highest accidents rates per region globally.
“It is common knowledge, widely propagated within the industry that at least 70 per cent of aviation accidents are contributed to Human Factors,” he said.
The DG noted that the probable causes of aviation accidents at the different stages of either design, production/manufacture, organizational, operational and maintenance processes and procedures.
He said human factors could fundamentally and best be described as “Matching the Man to the Job and Matching the Job to the Man under the prescribed conditions.
Nuhu said that implies compatibility of the person to the job that is preparing, adapting, enabling, equipping and conforming the person to perform the assigned task to achieve the design and expected objectives.
According to him, any mismatch will contribute to human error and is a precursor to an accident.
He also called for the implementation of Safety Management Systems (SMS) for identification of operational hazards, associated safety risks and implementation of appropriate risk management strategies.
Nuhu said this was to mitigate safety risks to acceptable and tolerable levels; and where necessary application of appropriate enforcement actions.
He said this was where motivational intent to violate statutory and regulatory requirements are established to serve as deterrent amongst others.
The DG quoted Roger Bacon as saying that “If you get it right, birds will fly, but if you get it wrong, people may die”. We do not want to get it wrong and we do not want to have blood on our hands.
Commenting, the Commissioner, Accident Investigation Bureau, Mr Akin Olateru, said for a substantial progress in air transportation safety to be achieved, it is necessary to focus on the most frequently occurring air accidents.
Olateru, represented by the bureau’s Director of Operation, Mr Dayyabu Danrara, said the frequent air accidents to be focused are the runway excursions and overruns and loss of control of the aircraft.
He said it was also important to focus on the phases of flight especially at its beginning (takeoff) and end (landing).
Olateru said aircraft accidents were dominated by the failure of human factor failure.
The Commissioner said despite of a positive development in the trend of accidents recorded since the beginning of the 21st century, the number of air accidents was still unsatisfactory.
He said: “Consequently, it is of paramount importance to do everything that would contribute to substantial reduction of the human factor failure in air transportation.
“A system of models appears to be an important tool for overall understanding of the complexity of human factors, serving as starting-points to an analytical and classification research of the human factor.
“At the same time, these models enable qualified investigation and assessment of the causes of air accidents and incidents, thereby preventing them from repeated occurrence.”
The LAAC Chairman, Olusegun Koiki, explained that like majority of air accidents, these aviation disasters could have been prevented if the necessary precautionary measures were put in place to prevent the accidents from happening.
Koiki said that the country cannot continue to waste lives unnecessarily as aircraft were designed by manufacturers for all situations that the flight crew could possibly encounter.
He noted that the need for continuous focus on human factors cannot be over-emphasised.
Koiki said the current Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) bill before the National Assembly should be passed.
“The approval of this bill will reinforce safety in all modes of transportation in Nigeria through distinctive, efficient and effective investigations of accidents.
“Other is serious incidents involving any of the modes of transportation within Nigeria or anywhere else Nigeria’s interests lie,” he said.
