PRESIDENT Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has directed the Directorate of Security Services (DSS) to arrest and interrogate officials of the National Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) over their roles in the alleged doctoring of the transcript of the Voice Flight Recorder between the pilot of the missing Beechcraft plane and the Control Tower of the Port Harcourt Airport in Rivers State.
The directive followed the discovery by the technical committee set up by the President to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the aircraft, belonging to Wings Aviation, that apart from doctoring the transcript, the tape containing the conversation between the pilot and the Port Harcourt Control Tower was erased after the incident.
A senior government official told The Guardian last night that members of the technical committee were shocked to discover that the voice transcript, which was presented to it by officials of the National Airspace Management Authority (NAMA) “was not only heavily doctored, the portion of the tape containing the conversation has been wiped out.”
According to him, “in order to validate the scripts, the committee requested the voice tapes from which the transcripts were made. However, to the dismay of the committee, it was discovered that the Port Harcourt International Airport voice tapes were tampered with. And this has made the committee’s work very difficult.”
Consequently, the State Security Services (SSS) was invited to arrest and interrogate four officials of the NAMA on their role in the alleged tampering of the tapes at the airport.
Those to be interrogated by the SSS are senior officials in the offices of the Director-General of NAMA, Air Traffic Services, Director of Technical Services and Search and Rescue Department.
The source noted that from its initial sittings, the panel believed that it was apparent that the Air Traffic Controllers at the Port Harcourt International Airport apparently misled the pilot, which could have been responsible for the fate of the aircraft.
Another source stated that the pilot of the aircraft is a seasoned one with close to about 10,000 hours flying experience and could not have taken undue risk.
He said that although the airline has its own procedure and charts on how to get to the Bebi Airstrip in Obudu, Cross River State, the pilot, Captain Egbedi, opted for the official NAMA route, apparently because he had not flown to the airstrip before, and preferred the official route.
The source added: “According to information available to us, the Port Harcourt Controller told the pilot to contact Enugu Airport Tower. But the pilot initially refused and insisted on flying the NAMA route, which would take him straight to Bebi. He was said to have later contacted Enugu and the Controller said he had traffic and cleared him to descend to 5,000ft.
“From a professional point of view, it is clear that the controllers do not know the topography of the terrain that the missing plane was flying. That was why the Enugu Controller cleared the flight for 5,000ft. Bebi sits behind a 6,000ft mountain. The minimum safe height at that position is 11,200ft,” he said.
The missing Beechcraft 1900D light aircraft was declared missing on March 15, 2008 and two days after the accident, senior aviation chiefs claimed that it had been found. This, however, turned out to be untrue. The wreckage of the plane was said to have been found in Dabu Village in Yalla Local Council of Cross River State where it allegedly crashed with all the three crew members feared dead.
The aircraft had departed Lagos at 07.35 a.m. for Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River State and made contact with the Enugu Control Tower at about 7. 54 a.m. before it lost contact with it at 08.04 a.m.
The Minister of State for Air Transport, Hassan Felix Hyat, had told journalists 48 hours after the mishap that the aircraft was found in the hilly village very close to Obudu Cattle Ranch Resort. He later recanted, saying he was misled by some aviation chiefs.
The names of the crew members who are yet to be seen are Captain Augustine Egbedi, a co-pilot, Captain A. Tanko and a cabin crew, whose name was simply given as Fubrata.
But the Managing Director of Wings Aviation Ltd, Captain Nogie Meggison, had said then that the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) “has communicated with the airline that the wreckage of the ill-fated aircraft is speculated to be in Yalla or Abakaliki area of Ebonyi State.
“There is no expert identification of the crash site yet, and AIB is yet to confirm the exact location. The search and rescue operations in respect of the missing aircraft belonging to Wings Aviation Ltd had been intensified with additional ground crews deployed around parts of Cross River State,” he said.
Only on Sunday, the Cross River State government said it had given up in the search for the missing plane.
Following the controversy trailing the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the plane, President Yar’Adua set up the panel to investigate the matter.