The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) said it suspended operations of AZMAN Airline because of non-adherence to safety and maintenance of its aircraft in line with NCAA regulation procedures.
Capt. Musa Nuhu, Director General of NCAA gave the explanation when he appeared before Senate Committee on Aviation on Tuesday in Abuja.
Nuhu said NCAA had in the early hours of Tuesday suspended operations of AZMAN airline for failure to comply with aviation safety guidelines and adherence to maintain its aircrafts.
He told the Senate panel that NCAA inspection showed that there were issues with AZMAN’s safety maintenance procedures and guidelines that were not being followed.
“We invited AZMAN people to come and sit with us, we discussed, we thought we had resolved the issue, but there is a fine against the Airline and the Captain.
“We did not want to ground them then, and we had to let them go.
“But on Feb. 16, the same aircraft landed in Lagos. The weather was bad; it had tyre failure, damage to the engine and the face large of the aircraft.
“At that point because of the level of the damage to the aircraft, it now became the responsibility of the Accident Investigation Bureau whose responsibility it is to investigate serious aircraft accident and incident.
“The airline keeps having the same maintenance issues. It will be irresponsible and criminal negligence on our own part not to take any action.
“I hate grounding any airline; it is a lot of money for the operator and is going to cause lot of inconvenience for air travelers. But it will be criminal not to take action.’’ he said.
According to him, the effort is to work with the airline to see what the problems are and resolve them so that they can become a safe airline.
He said the lifting of suspension of the airline would be determined pending the conclusion its full financial, safety, security, operations and maintenance audit.
On the two airports, Musa said that records at NCAA disposal indicated that approval was given for construction of a cargo airport in Sagamu but there were no records available on Wusani airport.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Smart Adeyemi (APC Kogi) said that NCAA decision to suspend the airline operations was tenable given the maintenance and safety issues emanating from the investigation.
Adeyemi said that the committee would still write and prevail on Federal Government on the need to provide further bailout fund for the aviation sector.
