By Ijeoma Nwankpa, Abuja
In an effort to recertify the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, NAIA, to be ready for emergency situations, the management has conducted an Airport Emergency Mock Exercise for Difficult Terrain.
The Airport Manager, Mr Mahmud Sani said the exercise was to ascertain how prepared the management was in handling emergency situations, to meet up with the requirements for the recertification of the Airport.
According to Sani, the certification period is done quarterly, and with its last certification in 2017, the Airport was due for recertification.
“Today, we have just exercised our Airport Emergency Programme; it is part of our recertification process. NAIA was certified about three years back; so we are in the process of recertification of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
“This programme we experienced today is part of the requirements to fulfil the requirement by the Civil Aviation Authority, CAA, and we have just done it.
“We tried to do this exercise to see how we can mobilise our human resources at the time of accident in an airdrome. We have Fire and Rescue Department manning the airport 24 hours,” he said.
Mr Sani promised that the management team would continue to sustain the standard and integrity of the airport, adding that the exercise prompted the department to come out to show how professional they were in terms of mobilisation and rescue of people.
He maintained that the exercise was mainly on how to rescue victims from accident at difficult terrain.
“The exercise has helped to advance the usage of telecommunication gadgets; it has equally helped us in demonstrating how stakeholders could respond in real accident situations.
“As an airport operator, we go into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with sister organisations in case of incidence or accident in the airport, so that they can come to our rescue.
“With this exercise, we are able to see response of our stakeholders like the teaching hospitals, air force, fire fighter service, police, civil defence, NEMA, road safety corps. All of them have been mobilised and come to service. These are the things we achieved today, which is commendable,” Sani said.
The Airport Manager added that the exercise helped them to identify some failures in the activities of the airport and to correct them.
Responding to newsmen’s questions, Sani said so far, though the exercise was good, the management was going to make evaluation inside the Emergency Operation Centre (IOC) with all the stakeholders.
“We have some observers that oversaw this exercise and they will tell us the shortcomings and then we work on them,” he said.
The Deputy General Manager, Aerodrome Rescues and Fire Fighter Department, Mr Rindap Nantim said that the exercise had given the firemen the opportunity to display their skills and prepare them for an eventuality.
“With the training that has been going on, I think our men are better positioned. They have the response capability to carry out their job very well even in rough terrain.
“The Federal Airports Authority of Nigerian, FAAN, service is specially planed in the sense that any fire fighter that reports to duty can carry out a check on its equipment. The issue of lack of water did not apply to airdrome as there was water supply everywhere,” he said.
According to Nantim, the vehicles at the airport had been designed to operate within a given period of time.
“The moment you arrive at the crash scene, in the first three minutes, if the man does not have required foremanship training, he uses the monitor to operate in less than a minute, because the ten thousand litres capacity vehicle can exhaust in three minutes.”
The mock exercise also had in attendance family members, who were reported to have their family members and loved ones on board the ill fated flight.
With the preparations on top gear at the airport, it is believed that the Civil Aviation Authority of Nigeria will soon recertify the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport for optimum operations.
