The Aviation sector in Nigeria has been put under threat four times in 2023 with incidents of contaminated Jet A1 fuel with water discovered from commercial aircraft tanks.

In a bid to prevent a recurrence, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is engaging stakeholders as a means to getting to the root cause of the problem and finding solutions.

Speaking at a stakeholders meeting on Thursday in Abuja, the Director General of the NCAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu explained that though the Agency is a regulatory body, they cannot solve the problem alone.

“Yes we are the regulatory Agency, but we can not solve this problem by ourselves. That is why we are involving all the stakeholders to get to the root cause of the problem and ensure that such incidents do not happen again.

“All what we are doing is for the traveling public, to boost confidence that as one board a plane, they are going to arrive their destination safely” he stated

While presenting a paper, the Director Airworthiness Standards of NCAA, Engr. Gbalohan Abalan said in the last incidents, the aircraft tank was filled with water.

He thanked God that the aircraft was on ground, “imagine what would have happened if the aircraft dictated the water in the air, the two engines would have shut down and the aircraft would have dropped from the air like a stone”.

According to him, on the 17th of July 2023, an incident of multiple failure water tests upon refueling a domestic airline occurred in Lagos.

”On 7th of July 2023, another incident of APU shutdown due to heavy water contamination occurred in Yola. Similarly, on 28th of April 2023, an incident of APU shutdown during engine start due to fuel contamination occurred in Abuja,” he said..

He said on 30th of April 2023, an incident of inflight engine failure following fuel filter bypass occurred in Abuja. Although in all the incidents, no accident was recorded.

Also speaking at the meeting, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Midstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Engr. Farouk Ahmed, promised to work in collaboration with other stakeholders in ensuring that only quality aviation fuel is made available to the sector.

“We are ready to collaborate with all stakeholders to ensure that there is stability of the fuel and also to ensure that the product imported is of required quality,” he assured (Tribune)

Update news