THE global aviation has been thrown into a very deep concern in view of the catastrophic plane crashes that have occurred in the new year of 2025.
Mostly hit was the United States where in just one week towards the end of January 2025, January 29th precisely, an American Eagle Flight 5342),a Bombardier CRJ700 airliner, collided mid-air with a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, killing all the 67 people on board the two aircraft.
As the dust was yet to settle, a medical jet flying a child patient also crashed in Northeast Philadelphia still in the United States killing the six people on board.
As the global aviation family was grappling with the tragic disasters to unravel why the two crashes could happen within a week, the accidents became more uncomprehending as President Donald Trump jumped the gun by almost immediately accusing the helicopter pilot, air traffic control and the former government of being responsible for the crash that killed 67.
Coming to Nigeria, in the new year, a Boing 737 aircraft belonging to Max Air suffered a type burst on landing at the Malam Aminu Kano airport with 53 passengers and six crew members onboard.
Unlike the two crashes in the United States which killed 74 souls without any survival, the 53 passengers and six crew members onboard Max Air are alive to tell their stories.
Since the crashes in America and the incident involving Max air, air travelers have been expressing concerns about air travels in contradiction to the belief that air travel is the safest mode of transportation with the focus on commercial and non-commercial aircraft.
Many key players have used the opportunity of the recent crashes in America and the incidents that have occurred in Nigeria in the recent past apart from the Max Air aircraft tyre burst incident at Kano to draw the attention of the aviation authorities to the need to pay more attention to such incidents whenever they occur as failure to be proactive often lead to disasters like crashes.
According to a commenter, who spoke on the latest incident in Kano: “The regulatory authorities should take incidents seriously and make sure they are averted. When private jets were having easy ride in Nigeria’s airspace, overshooting the runway at Ibadan airport twice within a short timeframe, NCAA took action and that one ended. Then the scheduled operators had their own. NCAA should be decisive in preemptive action to further fortify safety in Nigeria’s airspace.”
Before the traffic US accident, a lot of accidents happened there involving single engine aircraft, helicopters, environmental work planes and so on. But this was the first time in many years commercial airline was involved in tragic accident.
While the two American crashes and incidents happening not only in Nigeria have once again raised questions about air safety, key players in Nigeria still believed that air transport remains the safest mode on transportation with calls to the aviation authorities to still be more proactive.
A member of the Aviation Round Table (ART) who is the director at Zenith Travels, Mr Olumide Ohunayo lent his voice to the school of thought that air travels is the best option of traveling.
Ohunayo who acknowledged how the American air disasters and incidents in Nigeria and other places have nearly made aviation appeared to be unsafe, however remarked: “Let truth be said, aviation is still the safest mode of transportation and based on that we should still not rest on our oars, we still need to tighten all safety areas in the industry. Attention should not be on the airlines alone but should also go to air traffic controllers, the air traffic regulations, the safety compliance. So also just as we have realized, rather than concentrate on scheduled operators, we should also focus on non scheduled operators.
“Unfortunately it has happened, every country has a responsible investigation body that is suppose to work in tandem with the regulator to ensure that timely information is passed as airworthiness directive so that such accidents/incidents will not happen to the airlines that have similar aircraft or equipment and I think that process should just be continued and we must increase monitoring, we must be able to accept where there are lapses. We have been screaming about the number of air traffic controllers, the issue has come up again with US recent safety issue and that is something we need to address as we have been saying that we don’t have enough air traffic controllers and those that have retired we are trying to bring them back, but we need to train more air traffic controllers to avoid the situation that recently happened in the US where most of their airports are understaffed.
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“I also want to look at the case where batteries are being taken onboard flights as it happened in South Korea when the aircraft after taking off caught fire due to the batteries they stored in the cabin. So these are the areas we need to look at to ensure we do not have a recurrence in Nigeria.
By and large,in view of the crashes in the US,nobody is calling for head to roll immediately, looking at what happened in South Korea, the aircraft that got burnt, the aircraft that claimed lives, look at what happened in the US, nobody is calling for the removal of the departmental heads, rather they are going through a strenuous choreographed investigation process that will help deepen an improved safety and air traffic regulations. I think that should be a lesson for us for I’m sure if all these had happened in Nigeria we would have been calling for the removal of the minister, the NCAA DG, but look at them there everybody is going through the due diligence to critically examine every part to ensure all the mistakes can be corrected.”
In his reactions, a former military commandant at the Lagos airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, “From some comments I have listened to on both sides, there seem to be some instability in the management and the oversight of the Air Traffic Control Services in the US and the enforcement of the Regulations on our side. An American Legislator complained of the sacking of the leadership of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and controllers and possibly the sacking of some of the Air Traffic Controllers that led to shortage in the traffic management and possibly a major reason for the series of the accidents in the US.
“The incessant crash landing of aircraft on runways of the Nigeria airports is becoming too common at airports that are recently certified by the NCAA and this needs to be seriously considered during the investigation beside the faults of or from the aircraft. Aside from the accident of the United Airlines, all others involved our own domestic Airlines on the airports Runways some of which have just been certified. These runways are possibly included with those that need over N530bn for repairs. If we have to justify spending that much on the Runways, can we claim that their present states are not contributing to the crashes and excursions? Do we have sufficient staff for operations and effective management of the various services? How regular do the responsible authority conduct checks, inspections and Audits on the Safety Services Agencies? All these are necessary to ensure compliance with the regulations.”
