Nigeria Airports Fail United States FAA Audit

It has been confirmed that Nigeria’s major airports which operate international services were unable to meet security and safety standards during the recent audit carried out by the US Federal Aviation Administration…

Chinedu Eze

It has been confirmed that Nigeria’s major airports which operate international services were unable to meet security and safety standards during the recent audit carried out by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the renewal of Nigeria’s Category 1 safety status.

THISDAY reliably gathered that the FAA team gave Nigeria 65 days to close the gaps at the airports’ infrastructural deficiencies, especially in the area of safety and security.

Without the renewal of the Category 1 rating, Nigerian registered aircraft cannot fly to the US and this would also downgrade the rating of Nigeria in the world air transport industry.

Informed source disclosed that the FAA team was dissatisfied with the dismal record of stowaways from Nigeria, which depict the security apparatus of the airports as porous, which explains why there are so many security breaches.

There have been scores of stowaway attempts incidents at the nation’s airports.

In March 2010, a Nigerian, Okechukwu Okeke was found dead in the nose wheel compartment of the United States carrier, Delta Air Lines, Boeing B777 aircraft parked on the tarmac of the Lagos airport.

Also, on September 19, 2010 another Nigerian man was discovered crushed to death in the wheel well of Arik Air flight, which arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa. Prior to Daniel’s incident, another Nigerian was discovered in the undercarriage compartment of Arik Air aircraft, after it returned from a flight to New York.

Ground workers at the international terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, were shocked one Saturday morning in March 14, 2015 when the dead body of a man in his mid-40s dropped from the wheel-well of Arik Air aircraft being prepared for another flight to New York.

According to security officials, the body, which had started decomposing, might have been in the wheel-well since the aircraft had its last flight from New York.

There was another stowaway, who sneaked into the wheel-well of the massive Airbus A340-500 aircraft, hoping to hide there and get to New York; but instead of arriving at the JFK Airport, New York alive, it was his dead body that came back and fell at the tarmac.

These documented incidents showed that the nation’s major airports are permeable and therefore not secure enough to meet international security standards.

THISDAY also learnt that Nigeria, through the Nigerian

Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has met all other assessments during the FAA audit and it was also confirmed that the gaps observed during the audit would be closed by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN)

But industry consultant and the CEO of Belujane Konsult, Chris Aligbe said that the only solution to airport infrastructural deficiencies is concession, insisting that transparent concession of these airports would permanently solve the problem of obsolete and porous airports.

“The solution of poor airport facilities is concession, but there should be efforts to ensure that every staff of FAAN is carried along. The unions are major stakeholders. The concession programme should be put in the open so that the country will get the best of it. It is the responsibility of government in the concession that every staff gets all his full entitlements just at the point of concession and those that will be retained will be retained on different service conditions,” Aligbe said.