AIB releases reports of four air crashes

Nigeria’s Accident Investigation Bureau has released final reports of four air crashes.

The AIB Commissioner, Akin Olateru, said with the four reports, it had made it a total of 54 final reports released since the establishment of the aviation agency in 2007 and a total of 35 final reports released since his administration came on board.

The new four reports are the accident involving a Tampico TB-9 aircraft owned and operated by Nigerian College of Aviation Technology marked 5N-CBJ, which occurred at Zaria Aerodrome, Kaduna State, on September 26, 2018; the Accident involving a Boeing 737-282 aircraft owned and operated by Chanchangi Airlines, 5N-BIG, which occurred at Port Harcourt International Airport on July 14, 2008.

Also released is the report of the accident involving a Beechcraft C90 aircraft with nationality and registration marks N364UZ owned and operated by Shoreline Energy Intl Ltd, which occurred at Barakallahu Village near Old Kaduna (Military) Airport on May 24, 2011; and the report of the accident involving a Boeing 747-200 aircraft operated by Veteran Avia Airlines Limited with nationality and registration marks EK-74798, which occurred at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja on December 4, 2013.

On the accident involving Tampico TB-9, the bureau said, “Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB-N) was notified of the accident at 10:10 h on the day of occurrence by the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) through a phone call. Safety Investigators were mobilised and arrived at NCAT at about 18:30h on the same day.”

The causal factors responsible for the Tampico crash, according to the findings of the bureau, include the late decision to initiate a go-around after touchdown which resulted in the loss of directional control of the aircraft after landing.

The contributory reason was attributed to the inappropriate control input during landing roll intermittent interruptions in the training programme.

The bureau in the safety recommendation made, called on Zaria aviation college to ensure that “where there are gaps in student pilots’ training, policies and procedures should be put in place in the training programme so that the students are brought up to speed in both theory and practice.”

The bureau said tThe causal factor for the crash involving the Boeing 737-282 belonging to the defunct Chanchangi airline included the decision of the pilot to land following an un-stabilised approach (high rate of descent and high approach speed). A go-around was not initiated.

It stated that one of the contributory factors was traced to the deteriorating weather conditions with a line squall which prevented a diversion to the alternates coupled with the runway that was wet with significant patches of standing water.

The causal factor for the crash of the Beechcraft C90 operated by Shoreline Energy International Limited (SEIL), was traced to the inability of the pilot to control the aircraft to landing due to inadequate power to enable the pilot to maintain the appropriate approach profile (height, speed and glide path) to cover the required distance to threshold.

Contributory factors were given as non-adherence to approved storage procedure and approved return from storage procedure.

It said the causal factor for the accident involving the Boeing 747-200 operated by Veteran Avia Airlines among others was that the crew was not updated on the information available on the reduced runway length while the contributory factors included lack of briefing by Saudia dispatcher during pre-flight.

The AIB commissioner promised to release additional three final reports before the end of the year.