AIB seeks more funding for efficiency

Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), a body under Ministry of Aviation responsible for the investigation of civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents within Nigeria, has called on Chibuike Amaechi and Hadi Sirika, minister of transport and his minister of state for aviation, respectively, to aid the agency in getting more funding as monies it gets from government is not enough to function at its peak.

Felix Abali, commissioner of the Bureau, who said this in Lagos, predicated it on the fact that the AIB was funded through the 3 percent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) collected by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Federal Government allocations through the annual budget, saying the agency could do with more funding.

He said the funds would be directed to areas where it was mostly needed, especially training and procurement of hi-tech equipment, saying, “We also need to have hi-tech equipment and other sophisticated tools. These two resources will help us to deliver on our mandate and fulfil our vision of being among the leading accident investigation bodies in the world.”

Though the agency has some well-trained professionals and good facilities, but the accident investigation body needed more in this direction, Abali said.

The agency, the AIB boss said, has challenges just as it has great potentials, hoping that their visit would help overcome some of these challenges and reposition AIB among the leading accident investigation bodies in the world.

The AIB commissioner said the agency was silently but diligently working behind the public glare to prevent accidents from reoccurring, adding that the purpose of accident investigation was not to apportion blame or liability but to prevent future re-occurrence.

When the agency determines the cause of an accident, the agency would issue safety recommendations, the AIB boss posited, adding that AIB use the instrument of safety recommendations to effect changes in aviation safety.

With the recommendations made in the past, AIB has made local and international impacts that have affected aviation safety positively, he said, adding that in doing this, however AIB requires well trained, well-motivated and diligent professional investigators.

AIB, he said became an autonomous agency and effectively started operation in 2007 with the appointment of a Commissioner as a result of the passing into law of the Civil Aviation Act of 2006, adding that prior to this time, the Bureau was a department in the Federal Ministry of Aviation as Accident Investigation and Prevention Bureau (AIPB) and was headed by a director.

Accident investigation is one of the two important critical legs of ensuring aviation safety, the other being regulation.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) defines accident investigation as ‘a process conducted for the purpose of accident prevention, which includes the gathering and analysis of information, the drawing of conclusions, including the determination of causes and, when appropriate, the making of safety recommendations.’