Airspace safety: NAMA moves to replace radio equipment in 8 locations

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency yesterday said it would soon commence the replacement of Very High Frequency (VHF) radio equipment in eight locations across the country.

This is part of the efforts to boost communication between pilots and air traffic controllers for safer air navigation.

Spokesman of NAMA, Khalid Emele, in a statement, said the agency had put in place a machinery to accelerate an ongoing programme geared towards the total upgrade of its radio communication infrastructure across the country.

The agency, according to the statement, has taken delivery of the VHF radio equipment under the “Extended Range VHF Coverage” project.

He said the agency plans to replace all the Very High Frequency (VHF) radios at the existing eight (8) remote sites in Lagos, Kano, Wukari, Sokoto, Ilorin, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Maiduguri.

According to him, to spread the VHF locations across the country, it would add six new sites in Jos, Kaduna, Yola, Enugu, Benin and Calabar to make a total of 14 VHF sites in Nigeria.

“This is to ensure that communication challenges experienced by pilots in some parts of the airspace are totally eliminated”, he said.

Emele said the VHF remote sites were operated in a network that would have signal pattern covering the entire Nigerian airspace.

He reassured airspace users and the general public that its radio communication infrastructure remained serviceable, adding that the agency was intensifying efforts to improve quality in line with international standards.

He added that plans had been completed to extend the range of the longrange backup radios after the passage of the 2019 budget.

“When completed, the backup radios would also have sufficient overlap of propagated signals to cover the entire Nigerian airspace”, he said.