View Full Version : The Thai crash and Nigeria
flareout BC
6th Aug 2009, 11:34
Without deriding our Asian brethren, it would seem that, close to three years since the loss of a scheduled carrier hull, Nigeria's safety record is on the up?
Although Demuren's NCAA would take some credit, I think improvements like the information revolution sweeping through the land, better nation-building values and a positive slant to competition in the industry played their roles too.
In the period reviewed, Thailand lost a different One-Two Go MD jet and across the sea, it was the Garuda B737-400 and the Adam Air Boeing, every one of them with casualties; Iran has been even worse off.
Pity the Thais, their better facilities and procedures haven't matched the uglier face of the weather, but again, indicies vary, as their traffic volumes etc are altogether higher than ours'.
jetjackel
6th Aug 2009, 13:40
Let's hope the safety record continues.
Right now it's still pretty much semi controled pandamonium with the ATC.
The only thing consistant are the inconsistancies. With radar, occasionally, in Lagos it has reduced the holding.
:cool:
with all that money we seem to have that gets stolen, we can't give our selves total radar coverage, Nigerian air space at one time was the best in Africa:ugh:, what has gone wrong :{and where can we correct it:yuk:.
What time would that have been, if you please? I seem to remember a span of about 23 years when it was sheer chaos and from what I read here it doesn't seem to have improved.
Just for one, do you still have to pass all your details 10 minutes before you hit the Kano FIR because Nigerian ATC doesn't have a clue that you are coming, and that after the appearance of those big white SATCOM dishes?
Can you walk into the FIC at Murtala Muhammed Airport and get a full weather briefing the way you can just up the road in the (much poorer) neighbour countries?
Call me bitter and twisted if you like but I just burst into hollow laughter when I read these little praise songs about total radar coverage, the new and improved Zaria, the way the regulators now have everything under, uh, regulation.... As long as the oil flows I just don't see much changing in Nigeria. I bet Friday afternoon into early evening at LAG still looks like a swarm of wasps around a jam jar, pretty much the state of play back in 1981 when I first saw the place. Well, okay, it was better then because there was less traffic but....
Did they ever replace the surface lighting at DNMM that had been stolen back in the early Eighties? Remember how every morning would see a couple of fresh holes and a little pile of nuts and lock washers? Ah yes, the good old days....
Come on guys, wake up and smell the coffee. If there's a couple of million in it to attract the "ten-percenters" then you will get your big projects and the accompanying big palaver but real change?
Now I can just sit back and wait for someone posting from London to tell me just how wrong I am. That shouldn't take very long.
flareout BC
7th Aug 2009, 14:02
Which is not saying you are wrong on any score. I'm not a pilot, [cant say if you are but it sounds like you are one], and just love planes darn much, but with most else having failed us, coaxing is pretty much what we're left with. Or at least, the God kind of faith for other hopeful, who, then again, would be an exclusive club. But, you know, faltering step by faltering step, I think we'l get there
On a very basic level Nigeria has a lot going for it. The people can be wonderful! It's when you get the government involved that the wheels fall off.
Benin City, eh? Check out that big mast, built many moons ago right smack in the path of aircraft using the airport, just for one tiny example of something or other. (Benin City is a VFR-only airport according to the rules, yet traffic still moves in and out even during Harmattan.)
Sorry if I hurt your feelings there. I was really hoping for the heavy hitters from London to weigh in here and tell us all how very much better the new regulators are than the old regulators and so on and on. That no aircraft have crashed for a while now... You really think that shows serious progress, to say that Nigeria is less dangerous than Thailand? That's not saying much, is it?