AIB-N makes global history with Introduction of Digital Reporting System

Accident Investigation Bureau Nigeria (AIB-N) has made a global history as it goes further from the conventional air accident and incident reporting system as stipulated in the Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommendations, to a digitalized reporting system.

The Commissioner and the Chief Executive Officer of the AIB-N, Engr. Akin Olateru, disclosed the epoch making initiative at the ongoing ‘Industry Engagement on the review of Accident Reports’ at the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja. According to him no country in the world has attained as far as accidents and incidents investigation and prevention reporting is concerned.

“The fact is the world standard, which is ICAO, has a format of reporting the final reports that is hundred pages presented to the world and on website. What we are trying to do is to challenge the status quo, to actually find a better way of getting this to the public.Today, how many people are reading reports (accidents and incidents)? You have this report about 300 pages of what happened, safety recommendations and so on. What we are trying to do is to digitalise in a graphic way with a database of the same reports,” Olateru said concerning the motive and relevance of the new initiative.

“We are going to be doing that very soon, to make it easier for the airlines to read, for anybody of interest to go to a particular section rather than flipping through pages of documents.

If it is on human factors, you just click on the graphic and it will tell you everything on human factors. If it is about the engine, the same thing applies. The whole essence is about simplifying the way we communicate with the rest of the world in terms of our by-product and it has been discussed at the highest level at ICAO and its being accepted.

By the time we are done, Nigeria will be the first in the world that would come up with this format. That is what I mean by “Nigeria will lead the world very soon in terms of an accident investigation reporting system.” Looking at it critically, for any institution to progress and remain relevant, you need to invest in Research and Development, you need to have a feedback system to evaluate, re-evaluate how you do things; check your process and procedures and come up with a better way of doing things or a simplified way of doing things to enhance productivity and that is what we are doing in AIB.

On when the project will kick-off, Olateru said AIB is presently at the procurement stage and that it will be up before the end of 2021.

“We are going through our procurement stage, we should be ready before the endoftheyear,” he said.

Speaking on legal issue, especially trade marking of the new initiative, Olateru said: “When we are done, because we are making a lot of investment on this, Saudi Arabia has shown interest and partnering with us on this project because it is a great project that would change the world in terms of Annex 13 of Accident investigation.

“We will have a platform whereby airlines, stakeholders will subscribe; you have access to it to train your pilots, engineers and stakeholders in the industry. The press too can have access to it to update their information or satisfy their enquiries.

“There would be a nominal fee. In a way, AIB wants to use this as an opportunity to drive internally generated revenue.”