Air transport sector loses $10 billion to aerodrome accidents
By UCHE USIM and FRIDAY NWOSU
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Losses resulting from accidents around the apron ground operation, or air side activities in the aviation sector globally have been pegged at a sum of 10 billion United States dollars.
To this end, workers in these sensitive areas in the airport have been asked to work strictly within the rules at all times.
The Managing Director, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr Richard Aisuebeogun, gave the charge at the 2009 International Air Safety Conference with the theme: “Aviation Safety and Environmental Challenges”.
The FAAN boss, who spoke on the topic: “Airside Safety and Accident Prevention” said the report released by the Safety Flight Foundation showed that air mishap from apron and ground accidents is costing the entire air transport system the sum of 10 billion dollars.
He said safety element in aerodrome operations is the key aspect in the entire flight operations process, adding that aerodrome or air side safety is a key issue and a key component that must concern everyone that is in the aviation business.
“The safety element in that particular unit called the aerodrome is the key in the entire flight operations process. And if we are looking at accident prevention, then we must start from that. The interesting is that a record has just been released from Safety Flight Foundation which clearly shows that a total cost of apron and ground accidents in recent times, in particular to the air transport system has cost the entire global air transport system the sum of 10 billion dollars. If that is the case, aerodrome safety or air side safety is a very key issue and a key component that must concern everyone of us who are practitioners in this business today.”
Aisuebeogun stated that most accidents in aerodrome are not reported by some operators even though there is a mandatory occurrence reporting system put in place by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
He said absolute safety aerodrome is desirable but not achievable especially in the presence of the latest condition that can not actually be manipulated.
“That we do not have 100 per cent control over. One of them is weather related conditions. These conditions can occur, and if they occur it takes a lot of skill and effort on the parts of the operators to appreciate and off course whatever subsequent incident or accidents that could result from such occurrences,” he said.
He said FAAN has put in place 3 phase of management programme to address the issue of aerodrome accidents. He explained that the first phase involves the 4 international airports, Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano, the acquisition of hazard control equipments for bird strike and wide life management, procurement of fresh equipment from ICAO.
