George’s Point of View
Air Consult International recently audited the safety factors of Nigerian Airlines.
Only Aero Contractor’s aircraft were all okayed.
Virgin Nigeria Boeing 767-300 aircraft and Arik Air’s Hawker HS-125 planes were judged to be at risk. In fact, the executive jet charter business is deemed to be a risky business which has not kept up with general aviation safety standards, according to 234Next which somehow obtained the confidential report.
The report says also that “The operating environment in Nigeria is still a difficult one. Vast areas of the country’s airspace do not have radar coverage and air traffic control is provided by radio and procedural means.”
Of course, it is public knowledge that many African air carriers are on the European Banned list Non-EU air carriers are vetted against internationally binding safety standards established by the 1944 Chicago Convention and its annexes. Failing criteria include poorly maintained, antiquated or obsolete aircraft and the inability of the airlines involved to rectify their shortcomings and respect safety standards.
Virgin Nigeria has deteriorated since its original audit, and is now operating with fewer employees and deteriorating standards. Also, HS-125 Executive jets operated by Arik Air got a Category 0 rating in the audit.
Similar Posts
- airliners.net | Boeing | Delta | Diversion | Editorial | engine shut down | engine trouble | Ireland
Engine Failure; Delta Boeing Diverts to Ireland
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Paul MarkmanWhat: Delta Airlines Boeing 757-200 Philadelphia to Paris
Where: Shannon Ireland
When: November 20, 2010, 6:30 am
Who: 152 passengers 7 crew
Why: While over the Atlantic, the right engine developed problems. Pilots shut it down, and diverted to Shannon where they made a safe landing. Passengers were provided an alternative flight.George’s Point of View
I usually try just to get the facts. But when people read these alerts, it is not just the plane. Like on this flight. Can you imagine being aboard this flight, over the Atlantic—as on the infamous Air France Flight 447—and losing an engine? Can you picture your feelings at the moment you realize the failure, and every moment thereafter, until you were safely on the ground? Even with a capable functioning plane, and competent crew. Even with the knowledge that the plane could afford to shut down an engine. Having to sit politely in your row, and believing on some level, that you were placidly waiting to die while strapped in like a trapped like a Chilean Miner in a snow globe hurtling through space toward who knows what fate? Even if I do not write it, behind these lines, there is always a human element.
Remembering September 11, 2011, Long May We Wave
This day we are threatened by nature. Yesterday, the winds of Hurricane Harvey hammered Texas, and tomorrow Irma will be slamming Florida. It is a storm we will weather. We know we will, because we have lived through worse. We must remember this, because today is September tenth. And September 11, 2011 is a date no American can forget, marked as it is by four scars that will never heal. Four hijacked airliners carved the names of nearly three thousand victims into our memories, names written in blood. Three thousand names with more than three thousand families—and that is not even adding the number of injured, the number of rescuers, all losses that destroyed the innocence of our country. We were initiated on that day into a sad new world, scarred by tragedy that turned the sky from blue to red. How could we understand what was going on? The mass murder of our people, the senseless destruction, the planes crashing, buildings burning before our eyes. I’m just an ordinary guy. When it happened, I was bewildered by it all.
On Sept 11, this day, in 2011, Flight 11 and Flight 175 hit the twin towers.
The tragedy was filmed as it happened. We were glued to our screens, helpless, terrorized, mesmerized along with the international audience, the terrible scenes of desperate people making impossible choices: die in the burning towers, or jump to the unforgiving pavement. We cried, but we did not cry alone. The world cried with us.
American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, 64 aboard the plane and 125 in the impact, all fatalities.
On Flight 93, we saw our people become heroes. We learned of Burnett, Beamer, and Bradshaw, of passengers fighting the hijackers. “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” They rolled into history as heroes. How many lives they saved by their actions—an incalculable number—and these were passengers who acted against the hijackers knowing they would lose their own.
Children of today who ride airplanes are accustomed to today’s security protocols. It must be impossible for them to believe that there was a time when we simply walked aboard. There was no threat. But these days are different. We live in a world that irrevocably changed that day. It is a day we can never forget.
We tightened our belts.
We sharpened our defenses.
And we are not alone in this. The whole world is a more vigilant place.The twin towers were a symbol of our prosperity, a couple of the world’s greatest buildings in one of the world’s greatest cities; and though the towers stand no more, our cities and our country goes on. The Pentagon was rebuilt. A Pennsylvania park commemorates the heroes of Flight 93.
I certainly mourn those who were lost on September 11; and I feel for the families of the injured, as I believe we all do. I may mourn our loss of innocence, but I can also take pride that we stand now, scarred perhaps, but stronger because of what we have survived. We have taken measures to make our world safer, but we can never relax our vigilance. We can never such a thing to happen to us again. On the ashes of the towers, we rebuilt. Some of us are still rebuilding. On the ashes of history, we rise.