BY JIMOH BABATUNDE & DANIEL ETEGHE
In a bid to boost safety in the aviation industry, Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) has signed a contract worth over 5.8 million dollar with a Canadian Firm, CEA/Flightscape of Canada to install a state-of-the-art equipment in its new laboratory within six months.

The equipment which is for the understanding of recorded flight data from aircraft and flight simulators will further  improve safety, training, maintenance and flight operations in the aviation industry.

Addressing newsmen at the signing ceremony, Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, AIB, Engineer Sam Oduselu stated that CAE Flightscape is a world leader in the science of flight safety, specializing in flight date analysis.

Engineer Sam affirmed that the equipment has great benefit not only to AIB but also to the aviation industry in Nigeria and Africa in the general stressing that the agency would take delivery of the equipment in the next six(6) months.

“The delivery from CAE according to our contract is that they can deliver within 6months but you know as a Federal Government agency we do not have our own budget in isolation of the total Federal Government budget as of yesterday I was in front of the senate committee on aviation and letting them know that this is not a project that will have a open-end completion date, we need to get this project done and make our payment as at when due so that we can know the type of technology that we are getting as you all know, this project is also an IT driven project, so in another two years technology would have advance and then that will be dynamic in the aviation industry” he said.

According to Oduselu who explained that the firm would also train 12 staff of the agency in Canada in order to understand the operations of the equipment adding that 6 of the staff would commence training soon.

“In this contract we have training earmark for our staffs, we believe that the training of the accident investigators will not just be having few people to be the master of it, the training will be training at least about six to start and then also be able to let another 6 to go, we are going to have training in Ottawa, Canada and when we now get this laboratory here CAE need to also come and do on the job training here and they will be here to give us product support for about two years that is stated in the contract” he said.

Responding Executive Director of CAE/Flightscpae, Mr. Mike Poole, said equipment would also improve the safety rating the country adding Nigeria is the only country in Africa that is about to acquire the equipment.

He said with the acquisition of the equipment the country will no longer depend on other countries for the decoding of flight data in the event of any air mishap.

“It is indeed a pleasure to be here in a beautiful climate, there is no doubt that the bar has been raised today with respect to aviation safety by AIB, the commissioner is a visionary and he has a true passion for safety and this comes through a very strong passion that he has, when you talk to him, he has the support of the minister of aviation, his staffs and his colleges and I am delighted to be associated with him and to support his leadership in establishing this flight safety laboratory which is a corner stone and using it to make objective decisions of the foundation for safety recommendations and safety action and I have no doubt having done it for many years will result in a significant improvement in aviation in Nigeria, in this region and then internationally so I am grateful to be here.”