Bristow Nigeria has had a major fire in its new hangar at the Nigerian Air Force base In Port Harcourt. It would seem to have started in a Super Puma helicopter which was grounded for maintenance.
Last year Bristow (which had previously incorporated Pan African Airlines Nigeria into its corporate entity) split into 3 companies - Bristow Helicopters Nigeria (BHNL), now a Nigerian Company (i.e. one which has a nominal American 40% investment
), Bristow International Aircraft Guernsey Technical Services BATS (supposedly an engineering service company offering services to any aircraft operator in Nigeria (
) and Pan African Airlines Nigeria, an indigenous company. It's interesting that this indigenous company employs all its expatriate staff through the same Guernsey registered company as BHNL and has very few Nigerians in its employment in senior or middle management positions.
However, what's really annoying me is that Akin Oni has said he doesn't want anything of this being leaked onto the internet until the internal investigation has come up with its report! Perleeeeease
. It's 2014. Even Bristow must have realised it's the 21st century and (apart from the actual location of MH370) everything's out there in the ether these days
Luckily, I've not heard any reports of injuries to any people. Must have been embarrassing they couldn't control the fire without help from arch-rivals Caverton and Aero Contractors though!