The Nigerian Airspace Management Authority (NAMA) has disclosed that the agency has started replacing obsolete Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) at all Nigerian airports.
In a chat with journalists in Lagos over the weekend, the acting managing director of the agency, Matthew Pwajok, hinted that the agency was already replacing all the equipment to at least category 2 ILS.
NATIONAL ECONOMY reports that the ILS is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft, allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather.
In its original form, it allows an aircraft to approach until it is 200 feet (61 m) over the ground, within a 1⁄2 mile (800 m) of the runway.
According to the acting MD, the agency has provided ILS in over 32 airports that included the federal government owned airports and state-owned aerodromes.
“We have done category 2 ILS in at least ten airports. ILS has been installed in Enugu, Sokoto, and Abuja. Category 2 was done at Lagos airport 18/R. We have done the same in Akure, Ilorin, and many other places. We have category three ILS in Katsina, Lagos, Port-Harcourt, and Abuja. We have completed satellite navigation for backup in the event of power failure.
“We have provided ILS in over 32 airports at the moment at all the Federal Government owned airports and state-owned aerodromes,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, the NAMA MD said, the agency is ready for next year’s audit of Nigeria’s aviation industry by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Pwajok stated that the country was working tirelessly to ensure that it closes all safety gaps.
Pwajok said, “The purpose of the audit was to ensure that we closed all the gaps and the last audit was in 2016. We are working hard to ensure Nigeria passed the ICAO audit.”
He reiterated that as new airports come on stream, new en-routes connecting them are created, adding that, they were not part of the initial communication network, therefore, creating a few gaps here and there, stressing that, NAMA had to expand the air-ground communication.
“We earlier had eight satellite stations in eight locations, we have to expand the stations to 14, which included the new locations like Kaduna, Jos was restored and we expanded it to Benin, Enugu, and Calabar in addition to other locations such as Ilorin, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Abuja, Kano, Enugu, Port Harcourt, totally 14,” he stressed.
This, he said, had improved significantly the pilots-controllers’ voice communication within the upper airspace where we had few challenges in the past.
