The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) on Tuesday faulted a claim by the operator of the crashed Bell 206B helicopter that its late pilot wrote the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for an exemption/extension of his proficiency license, which expired four days before the crash.
The AIB said there was no evidence of the exemption application.
The helicopter, which AIB said ran out of fuel, crashed into a residential building in Opebi area of Lagos on August 28.
Quorum Aviation Limited insisted it wrote the NCAA to get an exemption for the pilot, but the AIB said the letter bore no mark of authentication.
The Bureau said in a statement: “AIB does not authenticate documents with the affected operator but with the regulatory body – the NCAA, which is the custodian of all the certificates.
“The letter, purportedly written to the NCAA by the operator and released to the public, does not bear any of the normal markers of a letter which has passed through the official process of the Regulatory body. It has no official stamps or proof of receipt by the NCAA.
“Furthermore, the operator has not shown the response of the NCAA to this purported application, nor have they tendered evidence of the approval of their request for extension/ exemption.”
