BOY FLIES IN ARIK AIRCRAFT UNDER CARRIAGE HOLE FROM BENIN TO LAGOS

 

Just before the opening of the Enugu Airport to international flights last week, through text messages and emails, I called the attention of the Nigerian civil civil aviation authorities at the ministry and at its parastatals to the quality of the aviation security control at that airport. Enugu airport was not the only airport that the quality of its security control programme requires attention, all the Nigerian 22 airports under the management of FAAN require such attention, because as I said in the mails, none of these airports had airport security fence. Sure, they all have perimeter fences that could be said to have met the international requirement for aerodrome standards (ICAO Annex 14), but most of them do not have enhanced security fence to enable them sufficiently comply with ICAO Annex 17 on Aviation Security.

Away from the buck passing that is going on now between FAAN and Arik Airline,the incident that occurred on Arik flight from Benin to Lagos on Saturday 24^th August 2013 called to question the quality of the airport security control programme at Benin Airport and the other 22 airports and the quality of Arik Airline security control programme. By now, the NCAA, the responsible civil aviation authority should be finding out what the quality of the access control at Benin Airport was like and what was the quality of the airport perimeter fence that enabled a teenager to cross the security controlled line? Was the airport conducting routine or regular patrol of the perimeter fence if the perimeter fence was not security enhanced?

Responsible authority should in addition, find out: how did a teenager acting alone get access into the airport security controlled area?  Did he get any help from airport staff to find the aircraft undercarriage hold as safe area to hide or did he find it by himself? For a teenager who knew little to nothing about aircraft, he probably got some insider help to do what he did.

Secondly, if the news report quoting the spokesman of FAAN was true, that the pilot of the Arik aircraft was informed of the unusual movement of a person under the aircraft before the takeoff from Benin, the pilot took a questionable risk that must be investigated by the NCAA.  We could start having copycats or moles of terrorists as stowaway, if the NCAA and State Security Service respectively or collectively fail to commence immediate investigation into the acts of the boy, and that of the pilot.

The information provided by a passenger on board the aircraft was critical for the pilot to have aborted his takeoff from Benin and allow the security authority at the airport to conduct search, checks or inspection of the aircraft before any further takeoff in accordance with the provision of International Standard on civil aviation security (ICAO Annex 17). With the level of criminal activities in our environment, the boy could have been a courier for any of our homegrown terrorist groups sent to place explosive devices under the aircraft at the point of take-off.

Buck passing that provides no solutions seems to be regular trade marks by aviation operators whenever something goes wrong with the security and safety systems that they have themselves put in place. Recall that, it was the same buck passing between Arik and FAAN when Arik Pilot taxied his aircraft into a parked aircraft at Jos airport few years ago claiming that the apron markings were too faint to be seen. It was the same buck passing among operators, FAAN, NAHCO inclusive, and government customs agency at MMIA when DDC machine got stolen by a trespasser through the airport fence from Akowonjo end of the airport perimeter fence.

This latest incidence of breaches in aviation security opens a window of opportunity for the new leadership at the NCAA to conduct comprehensive security survey or audits on all the nations airports and domestic airlines security programmes and the National Civil Aviation Security Programmes (NCASP) with a view to adjusting their vulnerability to the current level of the threats in our environment.

The stowaway of Saturday 24 August 2013 by a teenager was not the first occurrence in Nigeria. In 1992, a boy of about the same age with the one in the latest incidence, flew in similar manner on KLM to Armsterdam and was brought back to Nigeria through the MMIA two weeks later by the Dutch police and immigration officers.  One adult whose identity could not be determined and his nationality became controvercial did not survive in the aircraft undercarriage hole of an Egypt Air flight between Abidjan and Lagos in 1992.

Teenager holding on inside an aircraft undercarriage hole may be intriguing, what is even more amazing is how these boys were able to withstand temperatures of about 5 degrees centigrades or less at high altitudes especially in the case of the one on 6 hours flight from Lagos to Armsterdam.