Nigerian pilots have raised the alarm over the poor state of runways in some airports. They are seeking urgent intervention from government agencies to avert accident.

Measures, they said, should be taken to clear the runways of foreign object damage (FOD), including debris at the airside, which affects aircraft tyre types and other underbelly components.

According to them, FOD was forcing airlines to loose millions of naira replacing aircraft tyres and other vital parts of their equipment.

Besides the deplorable state of the runway at airports in Port Harcourt; Lagos and Abuja, government they said, should urgently look into the poor state of radio communication in the airspace.

In separate interviews  Air Peace Chief Pilot,  Captain Victor Egonu; Med-View Airline Chief Pilot Captain Stephen Fevrier; Arik Air Safety Manager Captain Jide Bakare  and a retired pilot with the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited  Captain Prekeme Porbeni, said unless urgent steps are taken disaster was looming in the aviation industry.

According to Egonu, runways at some airports, including Enugu, Port Harcourt and Lagos are death traps during the rainy season because their surface are not properly drained.

He said pilots have continued to complain about the poor state of such facilities, which according to him, has been a big threat to air safety.

Egonu said: “Pilots in Nigeria complain very often about the surface of Port Harcourt Airport runway that it is always waterlogged and does not drain properly whenever it rains to allow for smooth landing because there are depressions which allow water to collect.”

“And if you fly into Enugu, it is so bad that Air traffic controllers have had to advise you that they are potholes and that stones jumping off could burst your tyres and pilots are usualy scared. We have airlines with torn tyres from this. At the Lagos airport runway 18L, we are now avoiding it whenever it rains because it doesn’t drain well and so we divert to land at runway 18R

“And even in Abuja recently our aircraft had a burst trye from an object it picked up after landing on the runway and this is very dangerous because if you pick up something from the tyre on the runway as it was the case of the Concord aircraft it could ignite fire once it reclines and makes contact with the fuel tank.”

He said airlines and pilots would appreciate if runways are constantly inspected by the relevant regulators to ensure that they are in line with standards that ensure safe flight operations.

Also, according to Fevrier, the government should fix the poor state of air navigation equipment in the airspace, as it is making it unattractive to some pilots to use the nation’s airspace.

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), he said, should address the communication challenges being experienced by pilots to avert air accidents.

He said: “I came to Nigeria about 12 years ago and the first thing that we were told to learn as pilots is to say break-break when you get into the airspace and that is because the airspace is congested. I must say that the airspace is still congested and unsafe for pilots to fly.”

According to him, when flying from Lagos to Abuja pilots often lose contact with the Lagos control tower 200 miles into the airspace, which should not be the case.

He lamented that the same situation occured between Port Harcourt and Abuja, adding that pilots hardly communicate effectively with the control tower in Kano when coming into Nigerian airspace from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

“In Kano, if you are coming from Jeddah to enter Nigerian airspace, you can’t speak to Kano. You have to wait until you get into an 100 miles into Kano most times.”

“We really have communication issues in the Nigerian airspace and that needs to be addressed urgently.”

Bakare on his part said the biggest issue pilots are grappling with is the problem of communication in the airspace. ”There are so many issues, but communication is one of the biggest challenges that we face as pilots in Nigerian airspace,” he said.

To Porbeni, it was not enough for government to initiate interventions to bridge gaps in air communication infrastructure, there should be outright elimination of such challenges in air navigation.

He wondered why the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) that NAMA bragged about was not working. ”Pilots in recent times are undergoing serious challenges bordering on poor communication while flying in the Nigerian airspace.

“This is affecting the safety rating of our country compared with other nations around us, which have upgraded their systems in terms of air communication infrastructure,” he said.

He continued: “Repeatedly we kept on hearing the word; we have Total Radar Coverage. The answer is absolutely no. it is because any aeroplane or airborne machine flying in the Nigerian airspace can be detected, but there is lack of communication between the pilots in the airspace and the Air Traffic Controllers at the towers.”

Meanwhile, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), spokesperson, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu said the agency has commenced an intensive re-assessment of runways at the nation’s airports to forestall the potential accidents on the runways.

“It is, therefore, with the intention to increase the friction coefficient levels of our runways in accordance with NCAA advisory circular that the Authority is embarking on this exercise across the nation’s airports as the rain is becoming very heavy and unpredictable,” Yakubu said.

She explained that although, the regular friction measurement for Port Harcourt International Airport was conducted in March 2019 and the result fell within the minimum friction coefficient level, the airport however, still witnessed a skidding incident recently by an Air Peace aircraft. “As a short term measure to increase the safety of the Port Harcourt runway, the Authority just carried out a de- rubberisation exercise between June 15 to 22 , 2019 to remove any contaminant,” Yakubu added.

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has assured airlines and other airspace users that the nation’s airspace is safe for seamless and economic air navigation. Its Managing Director, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu made these remarks while receiving the Chief Operating Officer of the newly established Ibom Air, Mr George Uriesi, who led a delegation to the agency’s headquarters in Lagos. He explained that the agency had taken drastic steps to tackle communication challenges, especially in the upper airspace in the past couple of years, saying that significant progress was being made in that direction.

Akinkuotu said NAMA has seen to the upgrading of communication infrastructure in phases. According to him, radio communication in the ground control, covering 65 nautical miles at the 32 air traffic control units in Nigerian airports is perfect and this was done under phase one of the project.

He added that the second phase, which is the tower control, also covering 65 nautical miles and critical for landing and takeoff, is perfectly working in all the 32 airports in the country. The third phase, which he referred to as “approach communication”, covering up to 130 nautical miles, is working perfectly in all the 32 air traffic control units in the country.

Akinkuotu admitted that although the last phase, which is the Area Control or Upper Airspace Communication, may have a few challenges, attributing them to the creation of new routes. Concerted efforts, he said, are being made to address these challenges. One of efforts was the deployment of the Total VHF Coverage of Nigeria in 2010, which he said was limited by the architecture of 8 VHF remote radio stations deployed then. He added that the agency has just taken delivery of Extended Range VHF radio systems to replace old the radios in eight remote sites while six more are to be added, making them 14.

“There is also the deployment of 54 VSAT nodes, in the Aeronautical Information Services Automation project. This project has lingered through all the regimes in NAMA, but we are currently making efforts to see to the final takeoff of the automation project, which we believe would boost our communication system,” Akinkuotu said.

The NAMA boss said in line with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Aviation System Block Upgrade (ASBU), which stipulates that Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) provide alternative means of communication, the agency in 2015 deployed the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Contract/Controller Pilot Data Link Communication (ADS-C/CPDLC) in Kano and Lagos Area Control Centres (ACCs) to decongest radio frequency, adding that the facility has been up and running in the entire airspace.

In addition to the above, Akinkuotu said “the high-powered very high frequency (VHF) Jotron radios, installed at Lagos and Kano, were recently commissioned by the former Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who tested them with a British Airways pilot who replied him with 5/5, meaning: “excellent” and this facility is available and serviceable.