British Airways

The ugly events surrounding British Airways flight BA075 of March 27, 2008 have refused to die down despite BA apologizing via a 'proxy.' The summary of the events is that BA pilot of BA 075 ordered 136 passengers off his plane when they protested the handcuffed arrest of a passenger who was himself protesting the maltreatment of a deportee. It did not take long for the incident to become a Facebook campaign http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14986012353 . My initial reaction was disgust but i tried to get BA's side of the story, but my disgust turned into disbelief. http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=110311

I wish this was an isolated case but BA in particular is percieved as being arrogant and unresponsive to the needs of its Nigerian passengers. This is certainly not a first. BA needs to tag the line that great airlines like Emirates are toeing, service, great service shines through, and its not a function of your PR mans eloquence.

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Nigerian Bermuda Triangle

It was Leonard Lawal a Nigerian stringer for Fortune magazine who first brought it to my notice. Contrary to my last post, the missing Beechcraft 1900D has not yet been found. This is the third in a series of accidents in the region. Two controlled flights into terrain CFIT's, (plane crashes to the uninitiated) have occured here in the last decade. A helicopter crashed in Obudu in 1992, killing ten persons, and two years ago, on Sunday September 17, 2006, a Donier aircraft, NAF 003, flying from Abuja to the resort in Obudu crashed on the Nkokugh mountains. Several service men lost thier lives. What is it about the area? Bebi airstrip is about 1ooo feet above sea level and surrounded by thickly forested mountains as high as 4000 feet above sea level, and it is uncharted territory not covered by aviation radar. A veritable Bermuda Triangle. There have been claims that the airstrip is illegal, which is also to say that the Shell airstrip in Osubi, Warri is illegal. The problem however does not lie in the difficult terrain only but in the essential 'unregulated nature' of the airstrip, putting in effect, pilots and travelers to the airstri p at grave risk. One can never tell if the ATC at the end of the line is drunk and having a bad day and tells you winds are gusting up to 40 knots while the reality is 200 knots. Perhaps it is time to hasten the regulation of airports and airstrips by the NCAA, of course the NCAA as it were suffers from a dearth of proffessionals who are already being lost due to attrition to private markets, to carry out this assignment. We cannot afford to loose more lives in this murky region.

Dont sweat the small stuff

Yet another aircraft, this time a Beechcraft 1900 D went down, in the Obudu Hills of Nigeria. Its not something that i want to think or talk about but after an accident free 2007, have we been so caught up in pursuing the big things that we have forgotten the little ones? Three persons , lost thier lives in the crash. I wonder why it took rescue operations nearly 48 hours to find them.

North American Airlines

North American Airlines is set to discontinue flights to Lagos from the US on 19th May, 2008. Purportedly this is to enable the airline concentrate on charter operations. NAA and Delta are the only airlines who fly direct to the US from Nigeria, at least pending when the US DOT clears Nigerian airlines to begin direct flights. Meanwhile another airline relative of NAA, World Airways is still struggling to re- enter the Nigerian market. i suppose they should just tell us the truth that they dont want to cannibalise each others market

That Singapore Airlines A380 flight by David Robinson

I could not of course get on the maiden flight, not that i had the money, but David Robinson's piece captures the essence superbly. I get the feeling that im going to like this plane, what is there not to like, its turbulence proof and imagine that first class. Enjoy!!

Size matters. That is the inescapable lesson of Airbus’s new superjumbo A380, which made its first commercial flight, from Singapore to Sydney, on Thursday.

With gigantic wings that could carry an even larger aircraft, a full double-decker body and a generally spacious interior cabin, Singapore Airlines, the plane’s launch customer, took advantage of the expansive scale of the A380, the biggest passenger jet ever built.

As I saw on-board the aircraft’s first flight, the most expansive quarters are, as one would expect, at the front of the plane.

Singapore Suites, which the airline promotes as “beyond first class,’’ is a jaw-dropping luxury product. Located on the main lower deck, the 12 suites resemble posh private railroad cars from the Golden Age in sumptuousness and size. The seat pitch is a giddy 81 inches.

The personal video screen measures 23 inches, the seats are 35 inches wide with the armrest folded. When it’s time to go to sleep, the high-end customer gets a real bed -- a mattress laid out specially for the traveller, not a seat that unfolds into a bed. The rectangular bed too, is big, at 78 by 27 inches.

Business Class on the Singapore A380

There are 60 business class seats on the A380 as Singapore Airlines has configured it. The Kris World entertainment system, with its 700 music CDs, long list of movies and TV shows on a 15.4 inch seatback screen.

A hard plastic shell encompasses the 34-inch wide seats and a plastic console facing the flier includes a space for small personal items, a plug-in for laptop computers and a mirror flanked by two small lights. Two rows of lights flank the mirror in the average sized restroom, and a shaving and make-up mirror also graces the restrooms.

The aisles in business class are relatively narrow, perhaps to make room for the wide seats, and the overhead bins are surprisingly snug, not the commodious spaces I expected.

Even on the huge A380, economy is economy. It’s certainly decent, with 10.6-inch video screens at every seat, power plugs at most of the 399 economy class seats, which are 19 inches wide. The seat pitch is a so-so 31 inches, potentially painful on the long haul flights that the plane -- which Singapore plans to fly to London early next year -- are designed to serve.

Authorities at the Singapore and Sydney airports -- which had weeks to prepare for the arrival and departure of the A380 -- moved passengers briskly onto the plane and did a decent job on returning checked luggage in a timely fashion, even if the twin bridges didn’t initially work when it came time to deplane the two decks. Premium passengers received their luggage 30 minutes after landing, economy customers a bit later. Sydney laid on plenty of customs officers, who moved the passengers through at a quick clip. Beside here is Captain Robert Ting who piloted the aircraft together with the CEO of Singapore airlines. Lucky fellas.

Banjul Accord Group Meeting Monrovia Liberia

Illitrus, Haaba and Moi with Bill Hess FAA
Nigerian Delegation headed by Ms I. O. Sosina
The Nigerian Delegation
The DG Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority meeting with the Liberian Press at Blue Lake

Liberia was host to its first major international conference in 30 years and it had to be an aviation conference. Yours truly was in Monrovia recently as Nigeria, Cape Verde, Guinea, Liberia, Gambia and Ghana met for five days from the 22nd October to deliberate on ways and means of improving aviation safety across the West African sub region. One could not help but be impressed at the commitment of Liberia despite its obvious challenges to upgrade its aviation sector as well as host an outstanding conference. By the way the Banjul Accord Group is an association of West African countries determined to boost aviation safety to international levels and speed up air transport liberalisation in the sub region. here are some pictures

Plane crash in the Congo again

There must be something the Congo DRC is doing wrong. The Antonov 26 plane crash on 4th October was eerily familiar. We have been down this road before. Barely had the dust settled from the crash, Remy Henry Kuseyo Gatanga, the transport Minister was sacked. Same as our own former aviation minister Professor Borisade. But the Congo is unique, half of the crashes in Africa since 1998 have occured in this country of Patrice Lumumba. The ingredients as the past 11 air crashes in the country are the same:

1. Oct. 4, 2007: An Antonov 26 cargo plane crashes into a Kinshasa neighborhood shortly after takeoff, killing at least 50 people.

2. Aug. 26, 2007: An overloaded Antonov 12 plane crashes in the eastern region of Katanga, killing 14 people.

3. Aug. 3, 2006: An Antonov 28 crashes into a mountain and then tumbles into a valley in eastern Congo, killing 17 people.

4. May 25, 2005: An Antonov 12 crashes shortly after takeoff in eastern Congo, killing all 26 people on board.

5. May 5, 2005: An Antonov 26 hits a treetop as it lands near the central city of Kisangani and slams into the ground, killing 10 people.

6. Nov. 29, 2003: An Antonov 26 plows into a crowded market after failing to take off from the central city of Boende, killing 20 people on the plane and 13 on the ground.

7. May 8, 2003: The rear door of an Ilyushin 76 bursts open at 33,000 feet, hurling passengers to their deaths. More than 100 are presumed killed.

8. Aug. 12, 2000: An Antonov 26 crashes after experiencing technical problems trying to land in the city of Tshikapa. Thirteen bodies are found; another 14 people are presumed dead.

9. Sep. 12, 1997: A plane crashes into the Minembwe mountains in eastern Congo, killing all 20 people on board.

10 June 6, 1997: A Bazair Airlines passenger plane crashes near the northeastern town of Irumi, killing all 30 people on board.

11. Jan. 8, 1996: An Antonov 32 crashes seconds after takeoff from Kinshasa's airport, skidding across a busy street and plowing into a crowded open-air market, killing about 300 people.

Old aircraft, inadequate safety equipment in airports, and poor safety oversight duplicating what used to be obtained in Nigeria. Nigeria however, has just received a 45 million USD credit line from the World Bank to improve the Civil Aviation Authority's compliance with ICAO SARPs (Standard and Recommended Practices), instead of firing Gatanga, Joseph Kabila should have sought ways to strengthen the regulatory body’s oversight capacity. After all Gatanga just weeks ago banned all Antonov planes from operating in the Congo , only to reverse his decision evidently due from political interference. Therein is a lesson: there will soon be yet another crash in the Congo DRC and it will not be the fault of the Russian pilots or the Aviation regulatory body, but the fault of the government. The only lesson here for Nigeria is that we have come a long way from where we once were, but then again to achieve the very best possible safety standards, we must continue to strive. May their souls rest in peace.