Minister of Aviation, Babatunde Omotoba, has said the Lagos and Abja airports part of the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) would be ready in April, while the rest that would cover the whole parts of the country would e completed in November, this year.
The Minister stated this yesterday, while speaking to newsmen at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on his arrival from Paris where he held a meeting with Thales of France the contactor handling the project.
Omotoba said that President Musa Yar’adua was concerned about reported air misses and has ordered for the immediate repair of the Lagos airport radar.
The 66 million Euros TRACON project had dragged on since 2003 but President Yar’adua said that he wants immediate completion of the project to improve the safety of the nation’s airspace.
In April last year the old radar in use in Lagos collapsed due to old age and air traffic controllers resorted to procedural method of directing aircraft to landing and taking off at various airports in the country thereby causing air misses and other air safety related matters.
The Minister while fielding questions from journalists explained that the fixing of the radar was in line with President Yar’Adua’s directive that “we must make our airspace safe”, stressing that the radar was repaired last week.
He explained that both the Lagos and Abuja old radar are now functional at optimal level while awaiting the completion of the new ones.
Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic wave to identify the range, the altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed object such as aircraft, ship, motor vehicles, weather formations and terrain.
“The President has directed that we should fast track the project, and I am happy to tell you that we had agreement that the TRACON project for Abuja as well as Lagos will be declared open by Mr. President in the next 90 days. All the material for other states including Kano, Port-Harcourt, and others are going to be ready and shipped into the country by June and we expect the TRACON to be ready by November, 2009”