World travel is becoming easier and common place. Many years ago, it was only the privileged few who left their home towns and saw the outside world.
However, the arrival of the jet age has brought about radical changes.
The four methods of transportation network road, sea, rail and air, all routes attracting increasing levels of traffic in persons and cargo.
But because of time, speed and safety, passengers avail themselves of the use of air transportation more than others. And so, the importance of air transport cannot be overemphasized.
But how safe is the air transportation? Unfortunately, the continued air mishaps despite the measures put in place by the government call for an urgent attention. Lives and property worth billions of naira have been lost in this regard.
It is worthy to note that between 1960 and 1 983, a period of twenty-three years, there was only one recorded air mishap. But from 1983 to date, Nigeria has recorded over thirty air accidents and a death of about two thousand persons.
For instance, earlier in December 2004, over one hundred passengers and crew on board a Chnchangi Air lines B727-200 aircraft escaped unhunt when it made an emergency landing at the
Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.
On June eleven, 2005, a B737 aircraft belonging to Eas Airlines skidded off the runway of the Yakubu Gowon Airport in Jos, Plateau State as it landed on a water logged runway.
Barely twenty-four hours later June twelve, a Chanchangi Airline 8727-200 aircraft also skidded off the runway in Lagos until it ended up in a gully as it also landed on a flooded runway.
On July six, 2005, an A330 aircraft belonging to Airforce had on arrival from Paris ran into a herd of cows right on the runway of the Port Harcourt airport, killing all the animals. Although, the aircraft had a serious damage on its nose, none of the passengers and crew on board suffered any injury.
Few days later, a Trister Cargo airplane from the stable of Almiron Aviation of Uganda crash landed at the Murtala Muhammed airport Lagos and for about twenty-four hours traffic in and out of the airport was stalled.
On July twenty-three, 2005, a Lufthansa airplane also ran into a ditch at the Lagos airport runway and occasioned the closure of the runway for several hours.
Also, on October, twenty-two, 2005, Bellview flight 210 crashed in Lisa lgbore a village in Ogun State killing one hundred and seventeen passengers and crew members on board.
Another air mishap was averted the next day when a passenger aircraft belonging to Associated Airline crash landed on the runway of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos. All twenty passengers and crew members were however, evacuated unscattered.
Again, on December ten, 2005, ill-fated Sosoliso crashed at the Port Harcourt International airport killing about one hundred and seven passengers.
While Nigerians were yet to get over the shock of the loss of some good military officers involved in the air-force plan mishap that occurred at the Benue state, a month after, tragedy again struck the aviation sector as a trainer aircraft T89 belonging to the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria crash landed at the UAC maize farm, Kafin Mandern, about seven kilometers off the KadunaKano expressway, Northern Kaduna.
Although the four passengers on board escaped unhunt, the aircraft suffered severe damages as the nose, propellers and the wings were completely destroyed.
The list is endless and cases of Lucky escapes and near mishaps in recent times have reached an alarming rate.
The latest disaster six years and several crashes after precisely on third June 2012 a plane, a boeing McDonnell Douglas 83 with registration number 5N-RAM, operated by Dana Airlines Limited, crashed into a building at the densely populated iju-Ishaga area of Lagos, less than five minutes to touch down at the Murtala Muharrirned Airport; ikeja, Lagos, killing all the one hundred and forty-six passengers and seven crew members on board excluding those who were killed in their homes where the aircraft plunged into.
The crash happened less than twenty-four hours after a Nigerian Cargo plane crashed into a passenger bus in Accra, Ghana, killing ten people.
What about recounting horrible experiences of missed, cancelled flights, delays and disorder that characterized the aviation industry is akin to reliving many a bad dream.
This and others call for urgent attention. It is unfortunate that the various attempts by the Federal Government to restructure the aviation sector has not changed for better.
Nigeria is one country that has a high incidence of air crashes but even at that, we have learnt little and acted on far less as far as emergency and crash landings are concerned.
Sometimes this year, the reports of the ADC, Bellview and Sosoliso air crashes were reported on the on-line media mostly but it was almost a non-event. In a different country, the report that the Bellview and Sosoliso crashes were caused by human errors would have landed a few gugs in jail or at least, heavy sactions but no, they did not generate much buzz because despite the high death rate from those crashes, Nigerians have moved on.
For the last five decades, air transportation in the country has suffered plane crashes that have claimed thousands of lives including those of eminent Nigerians and foreigners.
Afterall, when on November twenty-eight, 1986, an F.28 aircraft of the defunct Nigeria Airways crashed three kilometres short of the runway at Emene, Enugu claiming fifty-four lives, the remaining eight F28 aircraft in the domestic fleet of the national airline came under the auctioneer’s hammer. In addition, two B727 aircraft shared the same fate, and after the return of the controversial wet-leased aircraft in the airline fleet, there were only eight aircraft left operational on the defunct Nigeria Airways domestic fleet.
Also government had taken a hard stance on the operations of Geriatic aircraft when a BAG 1-11 in 2001 crashed into a building in Govarmaja near Kano State, killing a former Sports Minister, ishaya Mark Aku and over seventy passengers.
Following the crash, the Minister of Aviation that time Mrs. Kema Chikwe reeled out the category of aircraft to be removed from the country’s airspace.
Dana Air flight 0992 was over twenty-two years and how the airplane and others still flying the airspace crept into Nigeria’s airspace is one that is setting tongues wagging.
In fact, one trend noticeable is that most of these crashes occur at weekends. The Bellview aircraft of 2005 happened on a Saturday, the Sosoliso tragedy of the same year also happened on a Saturday.
The ADC plane crash of 2006 was on a Sunday. One possible explanation for this is that many Nigerians relax at weekends and do not bother much about strict observance to work rules and ethics.
Worried about the aviation sector sometime ago, the Secretary-General of African Airline Association with headquarters in Nairobi-Kenya, Mr. Christian Foly-Kossi had said there were moves to ban aircraft aged over twenty years from the continent.
He said the proposition became imperative in view of obsolete planes in use by many operators which had made air accidents rampant.
Interestingly, ICAQ, Aviation ministers from all over the world would be meeting in Nigeria on fifteenth July 2012 to deliberate on air accidents and related issues.
The move is expected to spare us the agonies of needless human and material losses.
We cannot continue to toy with the lives of our citizens.
The time to act is NOW.
Written By: Felix B. I. George
