By Chinelo Obogo
Nearly five years after the federal government installed a Boeing 737NG flight simulator at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, the facility is now on the brink of certification, Daily Sun has learned.
A credible insider at NCAT, well-versed in the matter but not authorised to speak on record, told Daily Sun that staff from both NCAT and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), who were sent abroad for specialised training ahead of the simulator’s certification, have since returned. With the training completed, the certification process for the long-awaited equipment is now in motion.
“The simulator has been assembled and we are just waiting for the certification but before that, we on our part in NCAT have to get the machine ready. You must bear in mind that it has been on the ground for so long and everyone knows that you cannot keep a machine that long on ground and then expect it to be 100 per cent in shape. What it means is that we are trying to put it in good shape while we await the certification from the NCAA. I know for a fact that there have been meetings between the NCAA and NCAT team and everything is in process for it to work. Those who were to go for training abroad for the certification have gone and they are back and a programme has been set in place. The certification is not something that can be done in one day or two days. It is a process which is ongoing and once that process is over, which we are planning would be done before the end of May, that simulator should come into use,” the source said.
Before now, the Boeing 737s was the dominant aircraft type operated by Nigerian airlines prior to the introduction of Embraers and CRJs. The NCAA has to certify the simulator as fit for operation in Nigeria before local pilots can use it. It would also require International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) certification to allow pilots from other countries to use it.
Another source at NCAT slammed critics who have called for relocation of the simulator from Zaria to either Abuja or Lagos, saying that what they fail to understand is that NCAT, being a training institution, is the most suitable location for the equipment.
“Those who were advocating for the equipment to be moved out of Zaria don’t understand how this works. NCAT is a training institution and that is where a simulator should be sited. When clients come from different airlines, they come in batches because no airline will release all their pilots at the same time to come for training. As it is today, those who installed the simulator in NCAT are Europeans, aren’t they? Millions can be generated every year from that simulator, and all this while in which it had not been in use, so much money is going into servicing it and it is not generating any revenue.
“The NCAA has to have people that have the capacity to develop procedure manuals for certification in place. The first step is to certify the equipment fit for aviation training. All the procedures have to be in place, and that is what NCAA was not able to come up with since the machine was bought by the last administration. The simulator is used to train pilots to fly a live aircraft, so it has to be certified, but the procedure manuals, which are critical documents, have to be in place first,” the source said.
Daily Sun previously reported that the simulator was initially scheduled for delivery to Nigeria in December 2016 but was delayed due to late payments from the federal government. It was finally delivered in 2020. Analysts estimate that with the simulator in operation, the country could save up to $4 million annually on pilots’ training, in addition to cutting down expenses for hotels and international travel.
Just before his removal from office, the former rector of the institution, Capt. Alkali Modibbo, explained to aviation journalists that the underutilisation of the simulator was due to the arrival of the containers containing all the necessary components during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that while the contract for the simulator was awarded under Stella Oduah’s tenure as Minister of Aviation, the equipment was only received when Hadi Sirika was in office. Modibbo revealed that by the time the simulator was fully set up, the certification it received from the United States had already expired.
He further explained that when NCAT management sought certification from the NCAA, the regulatory authority admitted it lacked the capacity at the time to carry out the required certification process.
“We tried to get certification for the simulator. We went to Canada, South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). A particular company wanted to charge us over 300,000 euros just to get a certificate on the simulator, which was too expensive. Then, we agreed to train NCAA and NCAT technical staff on the aircraft simulator. So, we got two engineers each from NCAA and NCAT and another two pilots each from the two agencies to train them,” Modibbo said at the time.