The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has said that the $5m safety laboratory equipment of the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) would be used by seven countries in the West African sub-region.
The ICAO official and Commissioner for Banjul Accord Accident Investigation Agency (BAGAIA),. Caj Frostel stated that the revitalised equipment would go a long way in boosting safety not only in the sub-region, but Africa as a whole.
The BAGAIA member states that would make use of the facility are Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone, according to Frostel.
The laboratory in Abuja was in disuse for five years before it was reactivated recently following a training conducted by ICAO and some accident investigators from Singapore.
In a chat with aviation correspondent in Lagos at the weekend, Frostel stated that apart from the seven countries listed above, the facility would also benefit other countries in the world.
He said: “Much of what we did during the week was that we needed to establish that the equipment works. We have a BAGAIA interest that the AIB facility in Abuja becomes the centre of excellence in reading out flight recorders for all the seven countries.
“With BAGAIA we have ambition to expand to cover the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries and even Central and Southern Africa.”
Also commenting, a director in the accident investigation agency in Singapore, Michael Toft said the equipment was now in the right shape to download and analyse information from black boxes in case of an accident.
He explained that the same equipment is used in Singapore for data analysis, assuring that AIB’s engineers had been trained to handle the equipment for optimal usage.
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