Nigeria Deports a Bad Import

Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has decided to flex its new regulatory muscles by heaving an undesirable Arik Air Fokker 50 out of the country and over its border. The airline Arik Air has also been fined $20K for keeping the eyesore in service. PH-3XJ was a 1991 manufacture and the NCAA suspects that its due diligence in ejecting the airplane was well overdue. In fact the airplane was allegedly imported covertly without any of the obligatory "mandatory pre-arrival of aircraft safety inspection" protocols or courtesies. After the grounding, the management of Arik Air claimed defensively that it had alerted NCAA of the arrival of the aircraft because "the aircraft ought to have been inspected before being flown into the country - or a waiver obtained." In fact Arik's Fokker was on wet-lease from Denim Air, a reasonably reputable Netherlands-based airline that provides call-out services for many other reputable airlines -as well as providing airlift for the United Nations' UNHCR in Darfur and the Sudan.

It could be a paperwork hiccup. Arik’s Head of Communications, Mr. Gbemiga Ogunleye said representatives of NCAA had met with Arik and had discussions, but "what has complicated matters is that Virgin Nigeria apparently had applied to the NCAA to carry out a pre-arrival inspection of the same aircraft."

Nevertheless, he said that the company would immediately send the 16-year old aircraft out of Nigeria in response to NCAA’s directive. Countries suffering from a high accident or incident rate seem to be following a well-trodden path of blaming the hardware and not addressing the human factors side of the safety equation.