ODUAH IN TROUBLE AGAIN: Aviation Minister FAILS To Explain Why People Died In October Plane Crash

Abuja - Yesterday was a tough day for Aviation Minister Princess Stella Oduah as she accounted before the Senate Committee on Aviation for the ongoing investigation into the October 3, 2013, Associated Airlines plane crash, which resulted in multiple deaths. In her defence, Oduah said the aviation sector had already collapsed when she assumed her duties as the Aviation Minister in 2011, and that she repositioned the sector to meet global standards.

The Minister was summoned by the Committee to explain the possible causes of the incessant air accidents in the aviation sector in the last two years.

"I could not hold my tears when I got to the Port Harcourt International Airport"

Responding, Oduah said she deserved commendation for her efforts to give Nigeria's aviation sector a "face-lift" to meet modern challenges, but she is being crucified instead. Oduah narrated:

"The safety and security civil equipment installations were mostly in obsolete condition. Most of them were unserviceable and in some cases they were unavailable. Also, we met completely decayed infrastructure at all the airports; the dilapidated nature was just horrible.

"One of them is the firefighting base, just to give one example. The firefighting base we have is so sad that firefighters would not even want to stay there. Not just that bad, the equipment and the facilities they require to work with just don't exist.

"We went round all the airport facilities. The airport services were so bad. The air conditioners were not working; some air conditioners were older than some of our workers. The toilets were horrible. The elevators [lifts] were in such a dilapidated and unserviceable state. We found out that some of the security screening equipment were 12 years old. Others were completely obsolete that the screen could not even show anything.

"I met very dangerous working conditions. We also found very poor working conditions for air traffic controllers. In fact, when we went to Port Harcourt and Kano, we found it difficult to climb up because it was too dark and too scary. The lifts were not working and, of the average six floors to climb, this is something they have to do minimum of 10 times a day. It was very unhealthy and not conducive enough to work.

{read_more}

"We found several abandoned control towers all over the country. Indeed, the number of abandoned projects we inherited was 154. The runways were without lights; they were with potholes. The runways were worse than most rural roads in Nigeria.

"The worst part was the milling that we have - the place where training is supposed to have been done, that is Zaria. Zaria was in such a horrible condition. You wonder if products of such facilities could have the sense of safety, coming from where they are coming from, to really man the industry the way they should.

"It was a frightening tour when we visited Zaria. Then, coming to the agencies: we found massive leakage of agency revenue. In fact, almost 70 per cent of their revenues were all collectable, were unidentified.

"Worst still, there were no policies or procedures because all were manual-driven. In fact, the worst nightmare you will have is if you have to reconcile a particular transaction, you will not find any source document to do so. We were also able to notice huge lopsided concessions of the agencies, particularly the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria [FAAN].

"So, they will operate in the morning, sell tickets in the daytime and in the evening the money goes back to the owners without a recourse that some portion of that money belongs to the agencies. It is actually criminal to collect surcharges on behalf of government and to retain the surcharges.

"I could not hold my tears when I got to the Port Harcourt International Airport."

The Minister said most airlines refused to pay stipulated charges while others deliberately withheld government revenues.

"There were massive leakages of agencies' revenue due to manipulation of manual revenue collection process. There was also further loss of revenue due to several lopsided so-called 'concession' agreements skewed against the government and public interests," the Minister explained.

The scene of the crash

October 2013 Associated Airline plane crash

"It is not climbing, it is not climbing, oh! We are are in trouble, don't stall don't stall, Jesus..."The minister played a video reconstruction of the crashed Associated Airline plane's black box in front of the members of the Committee. Those were the last words of the two pilots in the plane which plunged to earth less than three minutes after take-off from Lagos Airport in October. leaving 16 of the 20 people on board dead.

Watch the videos; the story continues below

Watch videoWatch video

On the causes of the crash, Oduah had this to say:

"My promise is that we will get the primary contributory causes of this unfortunate accident so that we can apply the lessons from it for much safer travelling for our passengers.

"For us in aviation, the fact that we were able to get the preliminary report and be able to open the black box in a laboratory here in Nigeria by our engineers is unprecedented. It is a joyous thing for us that we were able to do so.

"What happens is that without waiting for the final report, we were able to put preventive measures in place and the preventive measure in regards to shared responsibility where pilots and service providers now know that they do have a responsibility. Until that responsibility is accorded, we will not have a complete safety measure that we are required to have."

The Commissioner of the Accident Investigation and Prevention Bureau (AIPB) Captain Usman Murktar said it would take up to a year for the final report of the crash to be out.
Usman said the preliminary investigation showed that human factors caused the crash: "The probable cause of the Associated Airline crash is still unknown. Each accident is unique. We have released the preliminary report. We found that one of the engines was not producing enough. The target we have is about 12 months."
Deputy Senate Leader Abdul Ningi faulted Oduah's report on the crash. Ningi said the committee would need further details to enable it write and present an acceptable report to the Senate.

Senate Committee keeps mum on controversial issues

There was no question to Oduah on the controversial N255 million bulletproof BMW cars purchased for her by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

Again, the Senate panel was silent on criticism surrounding the aviation minister's denial of additional landing rights to some international airlines to commence both Cargo and passenger flights to Kano and Abuja apart from Lagos where they now operate.

Thirdly, the controversial planned formation of a national carrier already named Nigerian Eagle did not come up in the Senate meeting with the aviation minister.