AFTER the plane crash some weeks ago, that led to the untimely death of all 153 passengers onboard the DANA Air aircraft, many questions have yet to be answered regarding the cause of the crash. While the details of the black box have also yet to be revealed, many explanations have been floating around in a bid to pinpoint the cause of the plane crash. For instance, issues are being raised on the age of the plane and whether it ran out of fuel mid-air. Did the plane run out of fuel'"The Nigerian plane was faulty", an airline official said, but the most argued explanation was about the age of the aircraft which was put at 22 years. While many expressed shock over the discovery, they blamed the government and its aviation regulatory agencies for inefficiency in the industry.In 2010, Nigeria banned all aircraft over the age of 20 years. However, recent findings show that that law was not being taken seriously. The policy was introduced during the era of Kema Chikwe as Aviation Minister, but it has not been incorporated into the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) regulation. Despite this, investigations have shown that some Nigerian airlines still operate aircraft that are more than 22 years old.According to planespotters.net, the average age of Dana's fleet of five planes is 21.4 years. Its youngest plane is 20.9 years old. Nigerian law bans aircraft older than 20 years, but the average age of Dana Air's planes is 21.4 years.Also, statistics provided by the Nigerian Village Square, an online publication, said the average age for Aero aircraft is 19.2 years, Air Nigeria is 12.1, Arik is 5.2, Associated Aviation is 23.8, Belview is 31.8, Chanchangi is 23.2, Dana Air is 21.3, IRS is 21.3, and Kabo is 35.3 years.The plane that crashed belonged to Dana Air, which uses older Boeing MD-83 jets. Many commercial airlines in Nigeria, and maybe throughout the continent, purchase cheaper second-hand aircraft, often those that are no longer serviceable in richer countries.Such planes are safe only if they are rigorously maintained by the airline's ground crew. Unfortunately, there is a history of air crashes involving older planes.The Lagos-based Bellview Airlines Flight 210, which crashed shortly after take-off on October 22, 2005 in Lagos, was 24 years old. The Sosoliso DC-9 aircraft that crashed on December 10, 2005 near Port Harcourt was 32 years old. It had been sold to Sosoliso by JAT Airways because it no longer met European noise standards.Experts posited that age of aircraft may not necessarily be the problem, except maybe in Nigeria.In the United States of America, American Airlines recently revealed that its fleet, on average, was 14.5 years old and getting younger as it received delivery of new Boeing 737-800s and retired old MD 80s.The average age of Delta's fleet also is 14.5 years while United's is 14.3 years, according to the website airfleets.net, which tracks airline fleets worldwide.In some other European and South American countries, aircraft age average is as high as 25 years.Aviation engineers say that as this dynamics play out and average age of aircraft continues to rise, addressing the issues related to aging aircraft becomes more and more important in order to maintain acceptable force numbers, readiness levels, and aircraft maintainability; avoid squeezing out recapitalisation budgets; handle personnel turnover that becomes more and more damaging; and keep maintenance costs in line, despite new technical problems that will present unforeseen difficulties. In short, they argued that Nigerians must maintain excellent maintenance culture.The Nigerian government had made a number of improvements to its air-safety systems, introducing modern passenger-scanning equipment and improvements in its airport radar systems.In 2010, the United States gave Nigeria the Federal Aviation Administration's highest rating, a Category 1, allowing Nigeria's commercial carriers to land in US airports. Yet, despite these improvements on paper, Nigeria's upgrades still failed to meet standards when it comes to implementation. Frequent power outages and failure of its backup generator systems often shut down air-traffic control systems for hours at a time, and delay the take-off and arrival of flights. Also, efficient maintenance of aircraft seems to be the most important issue at hand in Nigeria, since older aircraft are still flying efficiently in other parts of the world.Demola Ashaye, an IT consultant, said that it seemed as if Nigerians always waited for disasters to happen before doing the right thing. He argued that before the planes were bought, there ought to be an agency in charge of determining the state of aircraft being brought into the country and that recent discoveries only pointed out that they had been compromised."Unless Nigerians take air safety issues seriously, disasters will continue to happen. Wasn't there supposed to be a monitoring agency to determine when an aircraft engine had exhausted its active flying lifespan' Engines are the soul of any machine. Fatigue of any kind to it must be immediately addressed. The maintenance of aircraft is of utmost importance because if things go wrong, casualties are always heavy. Nigerians must begin to ask questions".According to www.windsorbrokers.com, the final rule to prevent "widespread fatigue damage" requires aircraft makers and airlines to establish the number of take-off-and-landing cycles or the number of hours a plane can operate without risk of fatigue damage. After the limit is established, the rule will prevent airlines from flying the aircraft past that point unless they receive an extension. "Requiring carriers to regularly inspect their aircraft for possible fatigue is essential to ensuring the highest levels of safety", it said.Segun Ademeso, an engineer, stressed that the government must enforce laws relating to the purchase and adequate maintenance of aircrafts before issuing licences to operators. This way, he said, only operators who could afford the expense of running their fleets efficiently would be given licences. A spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan said that 'every possible effort will be made to ensure that the right lessons are learnt ... and that further measures will be put in place to boost aviation safety in the country.
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