New Cockpit Policy Not Solution to Germanwings Experience – Union Scribe

The Assistant General Secretary of National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Olayinka Abioye has said that increasing the number of pilots in the cockpit of aircraft is not the solution to the Germanwings experience.

Recalled that a co- pilot of the Germanwings aircraft alleged locked out his pilot when he went to use the toilet and deliberately crashed the airplane in France killing the entire 150 person on board.

He spoke in exclusive interview at NUATE secretariat at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, while fielding questions on suggestions by experts and stakeholders in the global aviation industry.

He contended that the configuration of every aircraft entails two personnel; the captain and the first officer, adding that in some other bigger aircraft especially in the past, there is what is called a navigator within the same cockpit but that modern engineering technology has gone beyond those things.

According to him, “I don’t think it is the number of personnel in the cockpit that is the matter, what matter is there mental stability before, during and after the flight because we have read stories severally about the co–pilot who locked his pilot out of the cockpit and allegedly deliberately crashed the Germanwings aircraft in France killing all the 150 passengers on board”.

Abioye continued, “We have heard that he has suicidal tendency that he has been leaving and that he has also been accessing the internet on suicidal techniques .That has to do with the mentality of an average European. Suicide tends to be a taboo in this part of the world .Let us thank God for that and even when crashes does happen in our clime here, majority of the findings thereafter would say human error or pilot error.”

He said that one of the things Nigeria should do is to ensure that our system are serviceable, up to date and that every airline operator should ensure that his personnel are actually and adequately taken care of.

He called on airlines operators to adequately remunerate their personnel, adding that a situation where operators pay their personnel below what is due to them is an invitation to crash and calamity.

“We know airlines that do not pay their personnel three months salaries in the industry, which is an indication to accident. We know airlines that pay personnel half salaries and there have no excuses for this because there is no airline operating in the country that does not carry its passengers and obtain their full fare from them. There should be no excuse for any airline owing pilots, engineers, ground staff and other personnel.”

NUATE, he said has warned airlines severely and severally against the casualisation of aviation personnel, adding that it is an invitation to crashes and an invitation to disaster.

He argued that an aviation employee that is supposed to earn for instance N100, 000 and his employer ends up paying him N15, 000, would be willingly to drop a bag in the aircraft or any part of the airport if people with bad intention offers him N50, 000.

He urged the incoming dispensation of airline operators, stakeholders in the industry to be very cautious particularly especially with the security situation in the country.