AIB to Release Bristow Helicopter Crash Report, Five Others

• AIB to Release Bristow Helicopter Crash Report, Five Others

The Accident Investigation Bureau on Tuesday said it would release the final reports on the crash of an aircraft belonging to Bristow Helicopters and five other air mishaps within the next six weeks.

A total of 11 persons escaped death after a Bristow 5B BJQ helicopter enroute to Lagos from an off-shore location in Port Harcourt crashed into the Lagos lagoon in February 2016.

The helicopter was carrying nine passengers and two crew members on board when the incident happened.

The AIB also announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the bureau and the Republic of Benin on accident investigation, adding that it had released 16 final reports on air mishaps in the last 18 months.

The Commissioner, AIB, Akin Olateru, disclosed these in Abuja while speaking on the sidelines of the International Civil Aviation Organisation regional workshop on improvement of a fundamental safety oversight system in the area of aircraft accident and incident investigation.

He said, “We are currently helping many nations and one of the highlights of this event is the signing of an MoU with the Republic of Benin to assist them in terms of accident investigation.

“In the last 18 months, we have released 16 final reports on accidents and within the next six weeks, we should be releasing another six to the world. We are collating them to be released soon. One of such report is the one of Bristow Helicopter.”

Olateru said the AIB had been assisting other nations in the last two years on air accident investigation.

He said, “For instance, the air accident that happened in Sao Tome, we helped the country to investigate and we concluded that investigation and that makes it the first time in the history of the AIB to conclude accident investigation within one year. That report has been sent to the Sao Tome government, the operator of the aircraft, and the Russian government and we are waiting for the feedback.”

The AIB commissioner stated that accident investigation should not be allowed to exceed 12 months, except in complex cases.

“I don’t think that accident investigation should take more than 12 months, but I don’t want to comment on whatever might have happened in the past. However, under my watch, we have made it mandatory, unless it is a very complex accident,” Olateru said.

On the number of accidents still being investigated by the bureau, he said, “We have about 27 accidents to conclude the investigations and produce their final reports. When I came in 2017, a lot of these were pending and we inherited about 47 of them.

“It is not something we can rush into because we are fine-tuning the processes of investigating accidents. On some of the accidents, because of the time, we have lost some information concerning them. We are talking about accidents that happened some nine years ago.”