In just 3 years, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), the agency saddled with the responsibility to investigate accidents and serious incidents in the Nigeria civil aviation industry has risen from doldrums to gain global recognition. SULEIMAN IDRIS writes on the changes taking place at the agency.
The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB-Nigeria) was established by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Act, 2006, Section 29 as an autonomous agency responsible for the investigation of aircraft accidents, serious incidents and the publication of investigation reports. This was in compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13, the document that contains the international standard and recommended practices for aircraft accident and incident investigation. A part of the document also includes considerations for the establishment of an aircraft accident investigation authority in terms of its structure, staffing and legislature, hence the coming into existence of AIB in 2007.
To improve aviation safety
The fundamental objective of the agency, like sister bodies around the globe is “to improve aviation safety by determining the circumstances and causes of air accidents ad serious incidents, and providing safety recommendations intended to prevent recurrence of similar accidents. The purpose is not to apportion blame or liability”.
According to an expert, Daniel Adjekum, accident investigations are capital intensive and an enormous effort that usually involves many countries’ governments and input from dozens of industry partners. The inquiries can take months of painstaking work; however, they often yield important insights that improve flight safety for everyone long into the future.
An anonymous agency
For the first decade of it existence, the AIB-N was largely an anonymous agency within the aviation industry in Nigeria until 2017 when the aviation world began to experience the potentials of the organisation often referred to as the baby agency that depends on the big brothers to survive. Between then and now, Nigeria has become a name reckoned with in terms of accidents and serious incidents investigations across the Africa continent as sister Africa nations now line up to request for either assistance in investigating occurrences on their soils, training of their personnel or signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the organisation for one reason or the other.
Up till then, the AIB’s investigative capacity was limited by inadequate funding, lack of training of its requisite investigators, absence of laboratories that can be use to carry out simply analysis of equipment in the course of investigation here in Nigeria without necessary flying them out of the country thereby incurring huge expense in foreign currencies. Such activities put a strain on the agency’s finances thus retraining it from developing it manpower capacity to meet with its core demands.
However, since January 2017, the hitherto quiescent AIB has spring into global prominence following the leadership acumen of the Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, Engineer Akin Olateru.
Accident investigations are harrowing experiences in Nigeria. It is a herculean task for investigators to carry out investigation at any aircraft crash scene in the country. Scenes of air crash in the country are usually crowded by people who has virtually nothing to do with the investigations. Usually before investigators arrives a crash scene, people have flooded the areas and most time tamper with evidence and other lead that are suppose to aid investigation. Intruders often dash for belongings of passengers instead of rescuing them while in some cases the scavengers watch victims died without offering assistance but prefer to pilfer the crashed aircraft.
Aviation accident stakeholders
Stakeholders such as the police, fire services, medical personnel, the airlines, passengers, the road safety corps, the media, the public and others that are suppose to work together to ensure prompt rescue and smooth evacuation of injured passengers, if any among others are often at across road and irk each other over their jurisdictions. Most times, the squabbles among these stakeholders impede the processes of rescue, evacuation and collation of evidence from crash scene by investigator. However, having identified the critical role these stakeholders play in effective investigation, the AIB saw the need to equip them with mandatory knowledge of what is expected of each component in the event of any accident where they might be needed.
The changes taking AIB to global prominence
Training
When he resumed office in January 2017, Commissioner of AIB, Engr. Akin Olateru reiterated that technical training of staff of the agency will be his administration’s priority in order to achieve his vision of making the agency “the biggest in the nation’s aviation industry” according to him “I know it is the smallest in the ministry, but before the end of my tenure, I will ensure that the agency becomes the biggest of all. That’s my mission”. Assuring staff of changes that will follow the new dawn, the UK and USA licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer told disgruntled staff that “this is a new dawn, I require the maximum cooperation of all staff. I can’t do it alone, but we are here to make happen for the benefit of all staff. It is not about size sometimes, but about efficiency and effectiveness”. He also explained that “aviation is highly technical, very expensive and the most regulated in the world. At the end of the day, we are all going to be happy because everyone will go on training and more opportunities would be given to people”.
The promises have not only resonated across the agency but have also permeated through all the major and minor stakeholders the agency identified as been critical to its investigative activities.
In 2019, AIB undertook extensive training programmes for its stakeholders in what it described as the key component of it mandate. Within the year, it trained 400security personnel including the police, Road Safety Corps members and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corp on Air Disaster Management. Also a weeklong training took place for aviation journalists on “Investigation Management and Media Relations” in collaboration with the Southern California Safety Institute (SCSI). Olateru maintained that these are not just a one off thing but a continuous exercise in order to equip everyone for the task when call upon.
Release of accident reports
The core mandate of the AIB is the prompt release of accidents and serious incidents reports and recommendations to serve as a safety precursor to airlines in future, but over the years, industry experts lamented that reports are either not release or are out rightly kept in the shelves of the agency where they gathered dust without the industry learning anything about accidents or serious incidents. Also some reports takes years to be made public whilst the airlines involved must have gone extinct. Stakeholders however have commended the fresh breath of air at the AIB within the last 3 years. Between 2017 and 2019, the total number of reports released by the Olateru led management team account for58.7 percent of the total report released since its inception in 2007. A further10 reports is expected to be made public within the first quarter of 2020. Also within the same period, data obtained showed that 85 percent of the safety recommendations by the agency have been implemented by airlines, other sister agencies and others involved.
Global symbiotic partnership and collaboration
Nigeria has become a force to be reckoned within accident investigation across the globe in the last two years by virtue of the trends that took place at the country air accident investigative agency. Numerous symbiotic relationship, partnership and collaboration with sister organizations across the world have taken place. Prominent among them are those with the United States’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Transport Safety Board, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the United Kingdom, Bureau d’Enqueteset d’Analyses pour la securite de I’aviation civile (BEA-France). Those with University of Ilorin (UNIILORIN), University of Lagos (UNILAG), Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) of Singapore and the Banjul Accord Group Accident Investigation Agency (BAGAIA), an arm of the ICAO. Others include MOU with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and various sister Africa countries.
The agency’s leadership role in Africa was accentuated when ICAO requested it to investigate an air crash in Sao Tome and Principe.
