By Emma Elebeke

The Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Muhammad Sani Sidi has stressed the importance of space technology in aviation and maritime safety for effective and efficient management of disasters on land, sea, and in the air.

Sidi who spoke at an aviation and maritime stakeholders’ meeting held in Lagos, said that the deployment of space technology during emergency period offers humanity a platform to improve aviation and maritime safety as well as tools to manage disasters efficiently and effectively.

He cited the international standard, COSPAS-SARSAT as a good example of how space technology could be effectively utilized for easy identification of locations during the time of crisis, saying that the system has the capacity to pick up distress signals from a 406MHz beacon fitted on board an aircraft or a ship.

“The position of the distress and other related information is forwarded by the responsible COSPAS-SARSAT Mission Control Center (MCC), in this case, NEMA, to the appropriate SAR authorities. Its objective is to support all organizations in the world with responsibility for SAR operations, whether at sea, in the air or on land,” he said.

MEETING: The National Emergency Management Agency ( NEMA) organised a meeting with Aviation and Maritime Stakeholders on the use of 406 MHZ for the purpose of Cospas-Sarsat Alerting service at Sheraton Hotel Ikeja, Lagos. From left, Mr. Ishaku Shekarau , representing D-G ( NIMASA), Dr. Harold Demuren, D-G, NCAA, and Alhaji Muhammed Sanni Sidi, D-G NEMA at the event. Photo By Diran Oshe.

OSPAS-SARSAT is a satellite system designed to provide distress alert and location data to assist Search And Rescue (SAR) operations, using spacecraft and ground facilities to detect and locate the signals of distress beacons operating on the 406 Megahertz (MHz) or 121.5 MHz.

While, decrying the non-usage of the 406MHz beacon, The NEMA boss said it was unfortunate that plane crashes recorded in the country so far would have been avoided through alerts and signals via the locator beacons.

“The COSPAS-SARSAT system has the capacity to pick up distress signals from a 406MHz beacon fitted on board an aircraft or ship. Both the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the International Maritime Organisation have made it compulsory for all passenger aircraft and ships to carry the 406MHz beacon in order to facilitate SAR efforts in the event of any disaster.

“Unfortunately, stakeholders are not taking full advantage of the facility due to non-usage of the 406MHz beacon. Over the past years, records available in NEMA indicate that a number of plane crashes have occurred in Nigerian airspace without receipt of any alert or signal at the control centre. An example is the Shawline plane crash in Kaduna in May this year.

The non-detection of signals from these planes is an indication that they were not carrying the required 406MHz beacon or the beacons they had on board were not serviceable or operational,” he sai

He however said NEMA’s COSPAS-SARSAT equipment has been able to pick distress signals from planes and ship, thereby averting palpable disasters at sea and in the air.

He challenged the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to come up with sanctions for operators who fail to fit their aircraft and ships with the 406MHz beacon, saying, “we have to ensure that aviation and maritime operators comply strictly with international best practices and regulations.”