The House of Representatives, yesterday mandated it’s Committee on Aviation to investigate activities of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Nigerian Airspace Management Authority (NAMA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
The committee is to ascertain the extent to which the three organisations complied with their responsibilities of ensuring the airworthiness of aircraft operating within the country’s airspace.
The House also urged NAMA to ensure that there was regular update of weather conditions for the departure of airlines.
NAMA would also ensure that airline operators did not schedule flights when the weather was unsafe.
The resolutions by the House followed a motion by Rep. Sergius Ogun which was unanimously adopted by members through a voice vote.
Moving the motion, Ogun said that with the regulatory agencies and the range of functions they were mandated to carry out, the frequency of air crashes in the country called to question the expertise and competence of these regulatory agencies.
He said “laws such as the Montreal Convention of 1999, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Act 2006 and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulation 2012 make ample provisions to compensate victims of air crashes for loss of lives and injuries, but such provisions are incapable of replacing the lost lives.
“If thorough investigation of the activities of airline operators is carried out to ascertain the airworthiness of aircraft operating in the country, it will help in no small measure to minimise the frequency of air crashes in the country.”
It would also improve the rating of the country’s aviation sector globally.
