THISDAYonline

The mandatory assessment of the nation's aviation regulatory body, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) by the world body, International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will now commence from March 26th 2001.

The exercise, which was slated for November last year but put off at the instance of the world aviation regulatory body on account of logistic problems will cover principally three areas of NCAA operations, namely personnel licensing, operations of aircraft and airworthiness of aircraft as enumerated in ICAO's Annexes 1, 6, and 8, among others. According to the Head, Public Affairs of the authority, Mrs. Ify Megwa, in view of the high premium placed on the assessment, NCAA's Director-General, Enijakari Haruna declared that he and his team have since swung into action and that the records of what have been put in place gave him enough assurance that the authority is battle-ready to scale all the hurdles.

According to him, some of the efforts so far taken to guarantee a hitch-free exercise include the amendment of the Civil Aviation Act of 1964 and the review of the NCAA enabling law, Decree 49 of 1999, in line with the new democratic dispensation. The amendment was carried out in view of observations raised by the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) team that visited in 1999.

Following the amendment, the aviation regulatory function as conferred on the Aviation Ministry was accordingly transferred to the NCAA. This amendment has since been passed to the Aviation Minister for the necessary approval.

In addition, NCAA has, in conjunction with an American aviation consulting firm, Sabre, prepared a new Civil Aviation Air Navigation Regulation (CAANR) and Nigerian Civil Aviation Requirements (NCAR) in line with ICAO standard for the address of all safety requirements and operations of aircraft.

Series of on-the-job training and workshops have been conducted internally and with airlines so as to acquaint the officials with the new requirements just as a new inspectors' handbook has also been prepared and indoctrination courses held for the appropriate officers on its application.

NCAA has undergone a review of its aircraft register to ensure that only functional airplanes are on the register and thereby came up with an accurate updated Aircraft Register.

The exercise was extended to Aircraft Maintenance Organisations (AMO). Under this dispensation, a commercial airline operator is required to obtain an AMO approval cerdficate and this certificate are issued based on capabilities as per facilities, staffing, quality assurance, stock of spares, hangar capability etc of those Aircraft Maintenance Organisations.

Every operating airline in the country is now required to obtain a newly updated Aircraft Operators Certificate (AOC). The new AOC contains all the necessary details on safety matters including aircraft types, airports such aircraft can operate from and into etc.

There is no room for short cut for any defaulting operator as NCAA had put in place officers who regularly monitor the airlines with regard to their operation manuals and schedule, flight manual and equipment checklist etc.

While not resting on its oars, NCAA has gone a step further to update and stock its Technical Library with ICAO and aircraft manufacturers documents. This is in addition to the documents from the state Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of manufacturers/ design of the aircraft in operation in and out of the nation's airspace.

NCAA has given a face lift to its structure and equipment in the bid to scale the hurdle ahead and in pursuit of our primary role of oversight functions as a regulatory body.