Nigeria’s airspace is safe, says NAMA written by Wole Shadare (The Guardian)

Govt urged to investigate radar project

THE Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), yesterday affirmed that the nation’s airspace remained one of the safest in the world, stressing that its operations have been complemented with state-of-the-art equipment.
NAMA made the affirmation in a reaction to The Guardian’s report on Monday, which raised concern over the management of the country’s air airspace, more so with airlines allegedly evading over-flying the country with concomitant loss of revenue and status.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Air Traffic Engineers (NAAE) has requested the Federal Government to investigate the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) project because of its “ineffective performance due to poor state of the equipment.”
But NAMA’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Nnamdi Udoh, said his agency had been proactive over the years to ensure safer skies for flights.
For instance, he said, “NAMA recently concluded the implementation of Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria, which provides total radar coverage of the Nigerian airspace and beyond. Therefore it is virtually impossible for an aircraft to enter Nigerian airspace without the knowledge of the air traffic controllers as claimed.
“Statistics available showed that the frequency of international aircraft movement increased by 12.8 per cent from January to June 2012 over the same period last year.  Revenue from over-flyers increased by five per cent resulting in eight per cent passenger movement over Nigerian airspace.
“NAMA has invested huge resources in providing adequate communication for the Nigerian airspace. Toward this, a total VHF project geared toward providing total VHF coverage for the Nigerian airspace is nearing completion. The project is currently on a test-run and once fully activated, it would check redundancy in all areas of controller-pilot communication in any part of Nigerian airspace.”
According to Udoh, “NAMA recently concluded her World Genetic Survey Geodetic (WGS-84) project, which will enable the full implementation of performance based navigation. This makes it very easy for pilots to carry out trajectory approach in our airports.
“In spite of the security and power challenges in most of our installations, NAMA has continued to provide services for the expeditious movement of all aircraft flying to our airspace.”
In his presentation to the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah-Ogiewonyi, the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) President, Mohammed Safiyanu, wondered what happened to the Very High Frequency (VHF) radios that were part of the TRACON design and suppose to come along with the TRACON equipment “instead of the one that was improvised.”
The Director of Operations of NAMA, Alhaji R.O. Raheem, in his submission to the chairman, ministerial committee that is investigating the TRACON project, dated October 4, 2011, said although “this modern radar technology is indispensable to Air Traffic Control, the reliability of the various sub-systems and peripheral systems in use in Lagos radar unit has been its Achilles heel.”
He noted that the concept of TRACON is about the integration of radar stations in Nigeria to capture a single airspace under surveillance at all times, adding that it was vitally important to have a seamless network of these stations.
He however expressed regret that the Lagos Flight Information Region (FIR) was not fully connected, disclosing that this had shortened the radar coverage to the East of the sub-FIR.
Raheem disclosed that lack of communication with adjacent airports still poses serious challenge to air traffic controllers’ operations “as there is no effective traffic coordination.”
The summary of his report indicates that the radar stations were not yet functionally linked for air traffic control operation, while the EUROCAT-C ATC simulator has never worked, “and no group of controllers have been trained with it.”
According to him, “radio ranges are prohibitively low and sometime, aircraft are seen but cannot be communicated with. Coordination is mostly lacking within both Kano and Lagos FIRs and epileptic with adjacent FIRs. Power generation issues need to be given serious attention if the goal of TRACON is to be realized.
The multi-billion naira aviation safety and surveillance equipment has come under increased scrutiny because of its alleged unreliability; stakeholders have urged NAMA and the Federal Government to urgently address some shortcomings observed with its functionality.
“Penultimate week, United Kingdom-based Nigerian aviation expert, Captain Dung Pam, said the €67m ($81m) Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria project is at least 500 per cent costlier than that of Namibia, completed with just $14m.
Nigeria and Namibia completed total radar coverage of their airspaces in 2011.”
However, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency that executes the project, has faulted the analysis.
A statement by the agency read, “TRACON project delivered co-located PSR-MSSR, Air Traffic Management System including Simulator, BVCCS, VRS, MF- TDMA VSAT network, fibre optics, generators, AVRs, UPS and civil works at nine sites for €67 million.
“New technologies like ADS-B, ADS-C and MLAT are all complementary and not meant to replace the radar. Though they are cheaper at deployment but the aircraft need to have enhanced equip page in terms of transponders and other compatible avionics. It is quite absurd and preposterous comparing what the TRACON project delivered with a project on ADS-C. It’s like comparing an apple with orange.”