In search of graveyard for dead plane

Posted by admin Uncategorized Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Nigerians

airports have become an eyesore as disused aircraft litter strategic areas of the airside. They deface the aesthetic of the area. Many are waiting to see if the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria will match its numerous threats with action this time around, writes WOLE SHADARE.

BEGINNING from Monday this week, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) gave owners of disused aircraft directive to remove them in line with the authority’s enabling statues and byelaws.

Monday’s directive did not come as a surprise to many who are familiar with threats from the agency. This is about the third time the aviation agency would be issuing the same threat without action to back it up.

Former Minister of Aviation, Fidelia Njeze, had early last year inaugurated a committee to advise her on how to solve the menace caused by the parking of disused airplanes at strategic areas of the nation’s airport, a situation that exposes the area to danger.

She had inaugurated a 12-member committee on the removal of disabled aircraft, chaired by Captain Mohammed Ruma, the director of Safety and Technical Policy Department of the ministry in Abuja.

There are indications that the agency this time around is desirous of ridding the airports of abandoned aircraft that are littering the country’s airport, defacing the aesthetic of the area.

Unless government and “dead” plane owners agree on a befitting graveyard for disused aircraft, the threat to security posed by their presence and nuisance to airports would linger and the March 13 deadline of government to owners to remove them would just be another unmet date.

Those rusty planes on the tarmac, infested with algae once provided flights and comfort as the plane that are flying now, but the planes have gone the way of publicly owned Nigeria airways. The private airlines have abandoned them like human corpses on Nigerian cities.

For a first time traveller, the sight of the old, disused airplanes is repulsive.

The Federal Government and disused plane owners had been in a tangle over choice of graveyard for the abandoned planes dotting all airports in the country. The government has once again given another deadline, March 13, to the owners to remove them from the airports.

Unlike vehicles on roads that can be easily towed to scrap wards, airplanes are bulky, large and not easily disposable as disused vehicles and the owners want the international convention of burial of disused planes to be respected.

The FAAN, which claims to be disturbed by the problem, said that it was concerned with security and aesthetics of the airports.

The Managing Director of FAAN, George Uriesi said: “The abandoned aircraft pose potential safety hazard to airport operations and have over the years constituted an eyesore at our airports.”

He warned: “If the affected airlines fail to remove the disused aircraft on or before the deadline, the Authority will be compelled to remove them, and the affected airlines made to pay for the costs of such removals.”

Many stakeholders are not comfortable with the development. Assistant Secretary General of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Mohammed Tukur insisted that abandoned aircraft pose safety problems. He said that apart from obscuring the airside, they occupy space during operational and emergency-related hours.

The agency further noted that it took the action to guide against possible inhibition of the effective execution of the ongoing airport remodelling projects.

Across the nation’s airports, aircraft of various types have become companion to airport workers, administrators, policy formulators and each year FAAN gives ultimatum to the owners.

Some of the abandoned planes belong to Albarka, Okada Air, Chanchangi and Concorde Airlines. Others are NICON Airways, Fresh Air, Intercontinental Air, Dasab, Space World and Kabo Air.

ADC has all its planes and operations grounded as it battles challenges of compensating families of its 2006 crash victims and Sosoliso Airlines also has similar problems as ADC’s. Bellview also has about two planes, B737-300 parked in the area owing to some challenges it is currently going through.

Also Afrijet Airlines has its two MD-83 planes also parked there after it ceased operations since over a year, among several others, involving private jets.

In Kano Airport, Kabo is the king with many of its wide-body planes dotting all available space in the area. In Lagos Airport, particularly at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT), many of the listed carriers have more than two planes each abandoned at the apron and majority of these planes are B737-200, MD-83, BAC 1-11, Embraer and Bombardier.

The situation at Benin Airport is an eyesore, with many BAC 1-11 and B727 planes owned by Okada Air littering the airport.

The airline, it would be recalled, operated with so much promise and complemented the efforts of the liquidated Nigeria Airways. It had the largest fleet of BAC 1-11 and B727, with over 29 planes in its fleet and took part in Hajj operations with its jumbo B747. Just like many after it, they went with the speed with which they came on the scene.

Many of the other carriers like Albarka and Dasab were said to have gone under due to the Federal Government’s aviation policy of 2001 that barred the use of aircraft of over 22 years and BAC 1-11, as most of them had these planes in their fleet.

The government had taken the action following the crash of EAS in 2001 in Gwamaja, Kano, in which all the passengers, including a former Minister of Sports, Mark Aku, lost their lives. The government had argued, even before the report of the crash was made public, that the crash was due to the age of the plane. This however drew the ire of other stakeholders who faulted the claim that the age of the plane was the cause of the accident. Most of those who had leased the planes shortly before the crash lost their investment. The leases were forced to abandon the planes at the airports. FAAN on the other hand had kept issuing ultimatum after ultimatum to the owners.

A closer look at the abandoned planes showed that corrosion has set in and many of them are beyond economic value except to be sold to aluminum smelters, who buy the “scraps” for peanuts.

Speaking to The Guardian, spokesman for FAAN, Akin Olukunle said that the Authority had been working on the issue, which he said was posing serious concern to aviation safety and security.

He said that between 2006 and now, FAAN had been working to remove many of them from the airports, but regretted that its actions had been met with resistance from the owners of the abandoned airplanes.wp_posts