Concerns on AIB’s dither on interim reports on crashes heighten

Failure of the Accident Investigative Bureau (AIB) to issue interim reports with the attendant safety recommendations on air crashes has become a source of concern to industry stakeholders, BusinessDay interactions have revealed.

The implications of the action of AIB, an agency responsible for determining immediate and remote causes of air mishaps and the needed remedial actions to be taken, have caused material and financial losses to both families of the victims and government.

Besides, the delay has caused other accidents that would have been avoided if the reports of the previous ones were released on time.

For instance, some relative of the victims of the Dana air crash that happened June 3, 2012, are yet to be fully compensated both by government and the insurance companies, four years after the incident due to the fact that the agency was yet to complete its investigations.

John Ojikutu, secretary general, Aviation Round Table and former commandant, Murtala Muhammed Airports, told BusinessDay that the consequence of not releasing interim report with safety recommendations resulted to a similar incident on an Aero Contractors’ flight to Kano that was diverted to Abuja, which could have resulted into an accident last year.

“The endless wait for four years for the final report after the preliminary report had been released and the black box discovered is not doing any good to the industry and the stakeholders,” Ojikutu said.

AIB preliminary reports released few days after the crash show that Dana Airlines flight 0992 on scheduled domestic flight crashed into a densely populated area following a loss of power on both engines while approaching the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

Also in 2013, the AIB released its first report on its investigation activities on the crash, with no conclusion regarding the cause of the incident.

The report contains technical information concerning the flight schedule, altitude of the flight, geographical circumstance of the spot of crash, flight crew and last conversation of the pilots regarding the sudden loss of both engines and failure of throttles.

The same information was made available during the preliminary reports it issued few days after the crash and made available to a coroner making inquest on the crash in Lagos.

AIB said its investigative activities had included “visual examination of the aircraft wreckage, review of maintenance records and other historical information of the aircraft, documentation of the training and experience of the flight crew, determination of the chronology of the flight, review of recorded data, reconstructing the aircraft refuelling, and collection of related fuel samples, and interviews of relevant personnel.”

Wole Shadare, an expert in the aviation industry, said it had been four years the Dana Airlines aircraft had an accident at lju near Lagos, and it was also a year ago when an interim statement similar to the one released on Friday last week on the accident was released.

Shadare said the corona report too had given the direct consequences of the accident, it was expected that rather than waiting endlessly for a final report, AIB should had issued an interim report with safety recommendations based on those facts in its preliminary reports.

“No two accidents are the same. We need the final report to guide against future occurrences and when you keep people in the dark, they will not know what would have caused the accident but when the reports are made available, the mistakes are noted and future occurrences will be stopped,” Shadare said.

He noted that none of the AIB interim statements had mentioned facts as the direct causes of the accident and how it could be avoided in the future.

In March, 2016, Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la Sécurité de l’Aviation Civile (BEA) published the final report of their investigation into the pilot suicide/intentional accident of a Germanwings Airbus A320 that crashed near Prads-Haute-Bléone, France, killing all 150 on board on March 24, 2014.

Another incident is the initial investigation by France’s BEA on Air France Flight 447 crash in 2009, which was hampered because the aircraft’s black boxes were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years later.

However, the final report was released by July 5, 2012, showing that the aircraft crashed after temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements.

Stakeholders say the indirect cause or causes of the accident can only be found in the black box, which was discovered within days at the crash scene. Unfortunately, like all black boxes before it, had the ‘bad luck’ of data not ‘retrievable’ and this might be the area of conflict between the AIB and the stakeholders.

However, Dana Airlines has said that in the past four years, the airline has been up to date in paying the relations of the affected passengers compensations but has insisted on proper documentations and paper work for it to effect payments to those that have not been paid yet.

“We are up to date and for those who have not been paid, they need to do some documentations and paper work before they can be paid. The insurance company should also be under fire this time because the plane was fully insured and the insurance company should be the one talking and not the airlines,” Kingsley Ezenwa, communications manager, Dana Airlines, said.

Ezenwa assured affected relations and friends that the airline would continue to work with Prestige Insurance in Nigeria, to ensure the relations of the affected passengers were paid compensations.