AON petitions Jonathan over public hearing on Dana, Allied Air crashes

BY OLUSEGUN KOIKI (NATIONAL MIRROR)

Airline Operators of Nige-ria has condemned the planned public hearing and investigation by the Joint National Assembly Committee on Aviation, which is scheduled to commence sitting today. AON has however petitioned the National Assembly and the Presidency over the planned pub-lic hearing, saying that Accident Investigation Bureau is the only body recognised under the law to investigate air accident in the country.
The joint public hearing is ex-pected to commence sitting today through Friday, June 22.

The es-sence of the public hearing is to conduct investigations into the causes of the recent Dana and Allied Air plane crashes that oc-curred in Lagos and Ghana re-spectively.

In a petition sent to the Chair-man of the committee by the Secretary General of AON, Capt. Mohammed Joji and copies sent to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate President, David Mark, the Speaker of the House of Rep-resentatives, Honourable Tambu-wal and other principal officers of the National Assembly, AON insisted that the public hearing or investigation was unreasonable when AIB was yet to conclude its investigation.

AON said that public hearing had never followed any aircraft accident anywhere in the world because of its volatility due to loss of lives in such an accident, stressing that it could heat up the polity.
The petition reads in part, “The Civil Aviation Act of 2006 signed by the Members of Parliament on the 9th and 14th November, 2006 and endorsed by Mr. President on the 14th November, 2006, specifi-cally part (viii), para. 29, clearly gave powers to the Commissioner of Accident to Investigate Ac-cidents/Incidents and report di-rectly to Mr. President through the Minister of Aviation before any pronouncement is made over any accident."

Any parallel investigation, which can prejudice the outcome of the on-going investigation is against the International Civil Aviation Organisation – Conven-tion of Accident Investigation particularly ICAO Annex 13, which dealt with Aircraft Ac-cident and Incident Investiga-tion.
Furthermore, prior to the outcome of the initial stage of investigation, communications between the pilot and the control tower cannot be divulged.“We have read all sorts of jamboree by some members of the public who claimed to have knowledge of Aviation industry; perhaps some of them may not have even been a passenger in any aircraft all their life.

If this is allowed to continue it will put the aviation industry in bad light.”AON stated that apart from the three successive accidents, which occurred between 2005 and 2006 and claimed the lives of 312 people, the sector had a relatively accident free period, adding that the sector had achieved a lot in terms of safety and development particularly, the achievement of the past 12 months, which includ-ed the American Federal Aviation Administration Category One Status