Air passengers using the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos risk accidents as the radar system at the facility has broken down.
The radar is a system that promotes the safe and fast movement of aircraft operating in the air or on an airport surface by providing rules, procedures, information and advisory services for pilots.
The equipment, which was installed in 1978 when the airport was built, our correspondent gathered, had packed up for some time now, and Air Traffic Controllers had been relying on ground-based equipment.
However, the use of ground-based equipment will not allow the ATCs to have a perfect picture of approaching aircraft as it will not give a precise picture of the object approaching the airport as well as its size, sound and light.
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, Mr. Bethel Amadi, broke the news of the non-functionality of the radar system to aviation correspondents on Saturday.
Amadi, who had led other members of the committee on a fact-finding mission to the airport on Friday, said that air disasters were imminent because of the current state of the radar and the worrisome state of other aviation equipment.
He noted that the safety of passengers could no longer be guaranteed.
It was gathered that some industry stakeholders, who discovered that the radar was no longer working, had earlier raised the alarm, but were quickly calmed down by the authorities who claimed that the problem had been fixed.
A contract for the total radar coverage of the country was awarded for ¤56m in 2003 and was supposed to have been completed in 2006. The government had reportedly paid over $22m to the contractor, Thales of France.
Only on Saturday, the Minister of State for Air Transport, Mr. Felix Hyat, reportedly said that the nation had committed over N6.5bn to the project between 2007 and September 2008.
Amadi said, “Our visit to the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency on Friday paints a picture of sadness. We were very sad and very unhappy. In fact, it made me very scared to fly. We believe that something urgent and critical needs to be done to avert a disaster.
“Right now, there is no radar cover at the Lagos airport. What is simply being done is manual. They are now using radio communication to give information to the Air Traffic Controllers, and that is what they use to direct aircraft, which is very dangerous.”
According to the lawmaker, the Managing Director, NAMA, Capt. Ado Sanusi, had explained that the radar and other airspace equipment in Lagos and other 20 airports across the country were as old as the airports themselves, spanning over 30 years.
Sanusi reportedly said that the equipment had been functioning epileptically.
Amadi further revealed that the contractor handling the rehabilitation of the Lagos airport cargo apron had been summoned by the committee as he was said to have abandoned the project, having been paid over 50 per cent of the N859m contract sum.
He quoted the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria as saying that the contractor could not been seen again after allegedly completing less than 20 per cent of the project.
Amadi said, “We also looked at some other projects that FAAN is doing to bring about some level of transparency and accountability in the system. On the issue of the non-completion of the cargo apron that has been abandoned by the contractor, we have summoned the contractor for us to know what the situation is. The work done on site is less than 20 per cent. We think that this type of behaviour must not be tolerated, we must follow due process.”
The committee chairman said that the committee would be investigating why the rehabilitation of the domestic runway at the Lagos airport, which should ordinarily take six months, had been on for two years.
He said the committee would also investigate why the runway’s Air Field Lighting was not included in the contract, as well as an extension of the runway that was included in the contract but was not being carried out.