The Accident Investigation Bureau Nigeria (AIB-N) has disclosed the country’s intention to lead the world in digitalizing air accident reports and information through graphics, animated forms.
AIB commissioner, Akin Olateru said the country had already secured the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) approval and plans were already in top gear to simplify its air accidents information and report in a digitalized graphic form before the end of the year.
He further said plans were also underway to launch an aviation safety centre aimed at having a centralised reporting database that would be accessible to all stakeholders in the aviation industry.
“When you look at accident investigation, it is not a blame game. It is done in the interest of safety to enhance safety and find out what happened and the causal factor to see how we can prevent reoccurrence.
“The point is that ICAO has the format of reporting accident final report which is that you write a thesis, which is a hundred pages of the document and present it to the world and what we are trying to do is to challenge the status quo to find a better way of getting this to the public.
“Today, look at it very well, how many people read? So, you have a 300-page document of what happened, safety recommendations and others, by the end of the day, people don’t read.
“So, what we are trying to do is to digitalise in graphics with a database to see how we can report these same lengthy word documents in a graphic and digital format,” he said.
According to him, Saudi Arabia has indicated interest to partner Nigeria in this venture.
“When we are done, because we are making a lot of investment, Saudi Arabia has shown interest in partnering us on the project because it is a great innovation that would change the world in terms of accident investigation.
“We will have a platform whereby airlines, stakeholders will subscribe to have access to it and it can be used for training pilots, engineers, stakeholders within the industry.
“There would be a nominal fee because AIB wants to use it as an opportunity to generate IGR,” he added.
