The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, NATCA, has debunked the claims by Rtd Group Capt John Ojikutu that there were irregularities in the handling of Dana ill-fated  plane crash of June 3rd, 2012 by the air traffic controllers on duty saying that such statement was misleading and unprofessional.

The group affirmed that its officers on duty complied with the provisions and regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Docs. 4444 (PANS-ATM), Annex 11 (Air Traffic Services), Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (2009) and other approved local air traffic control instructions in force in the airspace and airport concerned on the day the Dana Air crash occurred.

In a statement signed by the President and General Secretary of NATCA, Haske Jibrin and Martin Akujuobi respectively, the ATC members insisted that the ATC officers on duty complied with the provisions of the ICAO Docs. 4444 (PANS-ATM), Annex 11 (Air Traffic Services), Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (2009) and other approved local air traffic control instructions in force in the airspace and aerodrome concerned.

According to the statement, the provisions above  included the emergency response procedures approved and published for use by Duty Air Traffic Controllers in Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos in the event of aircraft accidents.

NATCA further questioned the professional competence and experience claimed  by Capt. Ojikutu on the grounds that information available to the Association does not indicate that the said Rtd. Group Capt. Ojikutu holds any valid Air Traffic Controller licence, though he trained and obtained a certificate in Air Traffic Services, which was a prerequisite for further on-the-job training that leads to the award of a Civil Air Traffic Controller licence.

“The onus therefore, lies on him to furnish his listeners with his licence number, ratings held and aerodromes of validation during his historic 26 years sojourn as an air traffic controller as he has posted before the public.

“His phraseologies as reported by the media houses do not in any way define  him as an air traffic controller that he claims to be. For example, his call for the tape transcript of conversations held between the pilot, Lagos and Kano control towers shows that he does not understand the architecture, division of responsibilities, and transfer of control procedures within the Nigerian airspace, neither did he demonstrate any knowledge of Accident Investigation Standards and Recommended Practices (ICAO Annex 13), as manifested in his call for unrelated air traffic control/pilot conversations tape transcript, for a time frame that will neither aid investigation nor give any further clue as to the potential role of air traffic control in such an accident,” part of the statement reads.

NATCA also warned against utterances on the crash as the body charged with the responsibility was carrying out its investigation. According to them, the main objective of an accident investigation  is “prevention of future-occurrence.”

They debunked the claim that there were gaps in the tape transcript, stressing that modern air traffic controller/pilot conversation tape recording which NAMA employed was digitalized and tamper –proof while recording times were captured during each active transmission, the idle periods were also captured, adding that for the purposes of investigation, the active transmission times were listened to, while the idle periods bearing no messages were  ignored.