The Accident Investigation Bureau-Nigeria (AIB-N) has concluded plans to introduce digitalized reporting of incidents and serious accidents in the country.
The aim is also to further make safety recommendations easily accessible to the public making Nigeria the first country in the world to adopt the system.
In an address at a two-day Industry Engagement on the Review of Accident Reports organized by AIB-N in Abuja, the AIB Commissioner, Mr. Akin Olateru said, the digital reporting system was geared towards improving on the Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Oranisation, which deals with Accident Investigation.
“‘We need to move to the 21st century of accident reporting. With the new style we are coming up with, AIB-N will be the first organization in the world to improve on the Annex 13. We are already discussing with ICAO and we are at the procurement stage at the moment. However, we hope to start the new system before the end of the year”.
According to him, the bureau had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Saudi Arabia on this, while the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) was also being carried along.
He emphasized that, before the end of the year, the AIB would introduce digital reporting system, which would be web-based, graphics and animated style, saying that this would further ease safety recommendation reports.
“AIB-N will very soon be in the world news. We are going the extra miles to come up with different reporting style from the Annex 13, which gives us the right to investigate serious incidents and accidents in the sector”.
Participants at the event observed that, the era of operators hiding the serious incidents to their machines from AIB-N, would be gone.
A Management staff from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mr. Godwin Balang said, it was necessary to have a single reporting system, which should be made mandatory and accessible to all players in the Nigerian aviation industry.
According to him the single reporting system should include NCAA, AIB-N and airline operators, stressing that this would prevent inconsistent or inappropriate reporting system.
He also canvassed the use of checklists by all operators to ensure accuracy in the system.
