Nigeria’s airspace now safer – Omotoba
By OUR REPORTER
Thursday, November 5, 2009

Travelling in Nigeria by air is now safer as government’s investment in making the sky safe again has started yielding fruits.  

The Federal Ministry of Aviation had in the last one year, put in best practice standards to ensure that all threats to the safety of passengers are removed. Aviation Minister, Mr. Babatunde Omotoba, said in Lagos that the ambitious programme of the government on air travel which the Ministry of Aviation is vigorously implementing has given air transport in Nigeria a new face.  
“Already, the country’s airspace has been enlarged by the procurement of 27 VSATs which are in the process of being installed. When installed, the VSATs will communicate satellites to connect the entire Nigerian Airspace, all airports and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) headquarters to the world. The system is multi-frequency, multi-dimensional mean access system that would signal to us when any airplane has filed a flight plan any where in the world. It will also send automatic signals of distress to NEMA for any airplane not only in our airspace, thus enlarging our air space and enhancing national security.”

Bad weather which has been a big problem to flights and major causes of air crashes has also been tackled. To curb this, the Minister said, a thunderstorm detector will be installed at the National Weather Forecasting Centre in Abuja. “Here analyses of all weather readings and systems would be conducted to enhance safety. Talks have reached an advanced stage for this project which has received a waiver and approval for take-off. We have made giant strides in this area with the installation of wind shear alert systems, thunderstorm detectors, Doppler weather radar, and automatic update systems among others.

“We have also commenced the construction of the National Weather Centre in Abuja where all weather readings and systems would be analysed to enhance safety,” the minister said. In the next six months, 19 brand new fire tenders are being expected and more in due course. Every airport in the country will have one by the end of 2010.
 

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