A week after the crash of Eastwind Aviation’s Sikorsky SK76 helicopter in the Atlantic Ocean in Port Harcourt, the debris and the black boxes are yet to be found.
Joint efforts by the military and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) to recover the debris and the remains of four out of eight persons onboard had remained futile, reports Daily Independent.
Without the location of the black boxes, the immediate and remote causes of the crash would be difficult for NSIB to establish.
The NSIB had on Sunday said it was working to deploy a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to the site of the helicopter crash to recover the remaining bodies onboard of the aircraft.
According to the bureau, ROV is equipped to operate at depths of up to 1,000 metres, assuring that this would enable it to conduct detailed surveys, collect environmental data, and capture critical evidence essential to understanding the cause of the incident.
NSIB also said that its combined team of searchers was yet to locate critical components like the black box, Flight Data Recorder (FDR) or Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).
Eight persons had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in Port Harcourt Thursday last week, following the crash of the helicopter.
The helicopter, which had the six staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) onboard and two crew members of the airline, was en route from Port Harcourt Military Base (DNPM) to the NUIMANTAN oil rig before the unfortunate accident.
The accident occurred about 11:22a.m along the waterways in Port Harcourt. The aircraft ditched into the waters near Bonny Finima in the Atlantic Ocean.
Experts in the Nigerian aviation industry are equally divided about the failure of the government and its agencies to locate the black boxes and aircraft debris a week later, but they agreed that Nigeria was lacking in effective Search and Rescue (S&R) capacity.
While Capt. Samuel Caulcrick, the former Rector of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, described the situation as an “embarrassing moment,” Capt. Ado Sanusi, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Aero Contractors, said the situation was not new in the global aviation industry.
Speaking with our correspondent on phone on the issue, Caulcrick expressed concerns about the situation.
Caulcrick lamented that Nigeria lacked the capacity for search and rescue, stressing that this was supposed to be a strong part of the aviation industry.
According to him, if the country had the necessary capacity, it would have sent divers to the crashed area and be able to recover the debris, human remains and black boxes a week later.
He also canvassed for proper equipping of the NSIB as a multi-modal accident investigator.
He said: “I am bothered about our inability to find the debris and black boxes of the crash. This is so because we don’t have a search and rescue unit. This is supposed to be a part of a strong unit in the aviation industry because we ought to have sent divers down in that area.
“It is the same area where we have the rigs. So, if the divers can get to the bottom of the rig, they should be able to dive down and locate the debris and the human remains. There must be a unit in case the crash happens within our shores that can cover the black boxes scene and others. This I think should be under NSIB.
“NSIB has to be equipped; when it was the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), all they were doing was about aviation, but now that it is a multi-modal agency, they should be equipped more. This particular case is even in the aviation industry. We need to intensify and equip NSIB.”
He regretted that Nigeria has always been weak in the coastal area, but more involved in the Sahel region.
He recalled that when the C-120 aircraft crashed in 1992 in the Ejigbo area of Lagos, the then Military President Gen. Ibrahim Babangida had to engage Julius Berger, the construction company, to recover the debris and human remains involved in the crash.
He declared that 32 years after the crash, nothing had changed in terms of search and rescue.
He hoped that the situation would trigger investment in search and rescue in Nigeria.
However, Sanusi said the situation was not strange in the global aviation industry.
He lamented that 10 years after the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance, the debris, black boxes and human remains were yet to be found.
He described any accident within the coastal area as a “harsh environment” where debris may be difficult to recover.
According to him, to ensure effective search and recovery in coastal areas, it required specialised tooling and trained personnel, which he felt was lacking in Nigeria.
Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a passenger jet on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared from the radar.
The disappearance of the Boeing 777 aircraft with 227 passengers and 12 crewmembers on board led to a search effort stretching from the Indian Ocean west of Australia to Central Asia.
The perplexing nature of the loss of flight 370 is such that it has become one of history’s most famous missing aircraft till date.
Sanusi said: “Any crash that involves the ocean is usually very difficult to find the debris. It is a harsh environment to recover the debris and the human remains. It is always difficult and you need specialised tooling, specialised trained personnel to recover.
“So, it is not unusual. Sometimes, it is not recoverable. They never recovered Titanic despite the world’s technology. They left it at the bed of the ocean. So sometimes, it is very difficult in such a harsh environment.
“I won’t say it is a negative on our side as a country. Malaysia aircraft has never been recovered up till now, but if it had happened on the ground, you can access it, but you cannot find the debris, then, it becomes a problem.”
Also, an industry source who didn’t want his name in print, said he was not familiar with the coastal area where the crash occurred.
The source explained that the memo from the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development indicated that the search and rescue was a joint effort between the military and civilians.
According to him, if the military were involved, it would be impossible for the public to get necessary update on the crash.
“It is coastal water and how deep is it? Do we have a crane that can go deep? Do we have the capacity?” he queried.
Besides, Capt. Mohammed Badamasi, aviation expert, said that Nigeria was not prepared for search and rescue in the industry.
He also wondered if the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) onboard the helicopter was serviceable as at the time of the crash and queried if there was a distress call before the crash occurred.
Badamasi explained that a serviceable ELT was supposed to last for 24 hours after an accident, describing it as the surest equipment that gives the search and rescue the precise location of a crash.
He added: “In the absence of the ELT, the search becomes more difficult. The option is to use the time between the actual time of take-off and the last time of communication with the pilot as the time of the crash.
“The speed of the chopper and the time of last communication are used to calculate the distance between the take-off point and the crash site.”
He, however, said that there is a depth limit that the divers could go to for search and rescue or recovery because of high sea pressure.
