Monday Reuben, Abuja
DAILY COURIER - The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has declared that the Nigerian airspace is safe and secure.
This comes on the heels of certain online publications (Not DAILY COURIER) that the airspace is insecure due to a lack of radar coverage.
NCAA Acting Director-General, Capt Chris Najomo, in a statement, aligned with the stance of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) on the total radar coverage of Nigeria.
“In furtherance to this, the NCAA investigated two recent cases of violations of the prohibited flight zones (DNP4) in Abuja (and) established that both violations comprised controlled flights in controlled airspace, but strayed into restricted airspace as a result of adverse weather,” Capt Najomo said.
The NCAA confirmed that NAMA has complete radar footage of the two violations, with full details of the identities of the aircraft and operators involved.
This, the regulator explained, was made possible only due to functional primary and secondary surveillance radars in Abuja. Similar installations are in Kano, Lagos, and Port Harcourt.
The NCAA stated that the improvement of Nigeria’s aviation infrastructure and radar coverage is being backed up with five additional Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR) stations at Obubbra, Ilorin, Talata Mafara, Maiduguri, and Numan, to augment the four existing radar centres to achieve total coverage of the country.
