EMERGENCY management operations in Nigeria have been faulted in the ongoing inquest into the death of 153 passengers aboard the doomed Dana Air aircraft that crashed in a Lagos suburb in June.
A retired officer of the Nigerian Air Force, Mr. John Ojikutu, made the case on Tuesday, as part of his contribution to the inquest into the accident, before Magistrate Alexander Komolafe of the Ikeja branch of the Lagos High Court.
According to Mr. Ojikutu, the emergency operation in the case of the Dana aircraft clearly showed that the authorities did not respond until it was too late, wondering why the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) reported silence on the communication between the aircraft and Lagos, as well as the Kano control tower.
According to him, the missing 15 minutes recording would have provided a clue into happenings before the plane lost its two engines
The retired captain, who has 26 years of experience as an air traffic controller, stated that from the transcripts of the conversation between the control tower and the pilot of the ill-fated plane, there were gaps between what transpired.
He further stated that the air traffic controller on duty did not respond immediately he got a distress call from the pilot and when he ought to had taken charge of the emergency response, he handed over to a subordinate.
He said the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) did not have sufficient manpower, adding that the last time the agency trained its staffs was over 15 years ago.
Ojikutu advised that local governments should be equipped to cater for emergencies of such magnitude before the arrival of state and federal agencies, as a aircraft emergency was a local emergency and not a national one, urging the government to fill in the gaps regarding safety and security at airports rather than embarking on remodeling them.