Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos
August 14, 2015 – There are indications that officials of the Accident and Investigation Bureau (AIB) charged with the responsibility of investigating factors responsible for plane crash is not equipped with the required staff to respond to emergencies that could prevent plane mishaps in the Nigerian airspace.
This was based on investigation by our reporter who made a call to the emergency number 08077090901 at 5pm today in an effort to find out about the state of the black box of the Bristow helicopter that crashed on Wednesday into the Lagos Lagoon.
Although the phone number rang severally for about 10 minutes and repeated severally, only the answering machine was active and during the process the reporter was informed by the computer that the AIB should be called when Nigerians or any other persons spots a plane in distress in Nigerian airspace to prevent any air mishap and that the AIB operates 24 hours, 7 days a week.
And that officers work round the clock to prevent air mishaps. However, there was no body to pick calls when the reporter called the office.
Reacting to the development, a journalist said that if a plane in Nigerian airspace was in distress, it would have since crashed because the officers were obviously not on duty.
“So how would they be of assistant to any plane in distress”, the reporter queried.
