THE London Gatwick Airport has filed two mandatory occurrence reports to the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) against Nigeria’s flag carrier airline, Air Peace operations at the airport, raising safety violation concerns.
The mandatory occurrence safety violation documents were titled, “United Kingdom SAFA Ramp Inspection Report” with reference number: CAA-UK, -2024-0217’ and ‘NATS Management System Safety Report’ in which the authorities listed the carrier’s safety violations at the Gatwick Airport.
Also, the UK’s Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (SAFA) wrote to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on alleged safety violations of the carrier in London.
Reacting, the NCAA in a letter to Air Peace’s chief executive officer, Allen Onyema, with reference number: NCAA/DOLTS/APL/Vol.11/03624, titled, “United Kingdom SAFA Ramp Inspection Report dated May 14, 2024, and signed by the general manager operations, O.O. Lawani, a captain, on behalf of the director-general of NCAA urged the airline to rectify the complaints.
“You are required to notify the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) of your corrective actions on these findings,” the NCAA said.
The NCAA stated in the letter that it received a SAFA Ramp Inspection Report numbered CAA-UK-2024-0217 which was conducted at London Gatwick on April 7, 2024, at 09:33 local time on Air Peace’s B777-200 aircraft with registration Number 5N-BE (S/N 28324).
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In the letter, the NCAA said the UK CAA called its attention to the no operational approval of electronic flight bag (EFB) functions affecting the safe operation of the aircraft while adding that the flight captain admitted that an electronic flight bag was being used for navigational purposes.
The NCAA further noted that the CAA stated in its letter that there was “no mounting device for the use of EFB, no charging points or battery for backup.”
The ICIR reported that Air Peace began operations at London Gatwick from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos under the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) Nigeria has with the UK on April 30, 2024, amid fanfare.
The Nigerian flagship flight has also to contend with several other established flights like British Airways, Lufthansa, and Virgin Atlantic many of whom had been accused of ‘predatory pricing’ because of Nigeria’s foreign exchange and currency problems.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.