Why aircraft conveying Power Minister, others crashed in Ibadan
The crash of an aircraft HS25 operated by the Flint Aero that crashed short of the runway at the Ibadan airport on Friday November 3, has been attributed to the unavailability of an Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the aerodrome.
The plane, which had the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu and his aides onboard had departed Abuja for the ancient city at 6:41pm but couldn’t land successfully as a result of the absence of the precision landing equipment for the pilot to touch down the runway of the Ibadan airport category.
A competent source at the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) told our correspondent in Lagos that the airport is yet to be equipped with the equipment that could have aided the landing of the aircraft without difficulties.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo at the weekend in Lagos said contracts for obsolete air navigation equipment and similar others will be cancelled as he has ordered a review of such contracts undertaken by all the government agencies in the aviation sector.
Speaking at a one stakeholders forum in Ikeja at the weekend, Keyamo said he discovered that the equipment ordered especially for air navigation purposes are outdated and appealed to the Chairmen of the both chambers of the National Assembly to scrutinize the budget for them before they give approval for their purchase.
Keyamo said “From what I heard from the grapevine most of the contracts given were obsolete. Even the ones we are still going to pay billions of dollars for are equipment that if you finally pay for them, it is not going to work. I want to appeal to the chairmen of the house committees before you approve the NAMA contract for 2024, ask relevant questions.
I have done my own contract review and I’m going to cancel most of the contracts and count our losses. Even if we ‘ve paid 5%, 10 per cent, let the money go I will tell you to return it but we cannot go further to start paying the remaining 90% of dollars on that contract For the equipment coming in” he declared.
