Crashed Lagos Helicopter Has no Black Box – Investigation Bureau

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Obiajulu Joel Nwolu

Obiajulu Joel Nwolu is an established writer at africannewstoday.com. He is passionate about African affairs. He loves writing about interesting facts relating to the African continent and enjoys sharing his knowledge with others.

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The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) has said that the Bell 206-B3 that crashed on Salvation Road, Opebi in the Ikeja area of Lagos State has no black box.

Investigation has started without the black box, revealed AIG, the investigating body in charge of all air-related mishaps in Nigeria.

The black box is certified by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the United Nations designated agency for global aviation regulation as key resource for improvement of aviation safety. Also known as flight recorders, voice recordings from the flight are important for determining cause of aviation accidents. They are most useful to determine what happened on an aircraft before accidents, especially the pilot’s last conversation.

The helicopter which crashed into a fence demarcating two houses, two minutes before getting to its destination at Murtala Muhammed Airport had three people aboard while the one survivor who survived after two had died on the spot passed on at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.

According to the AIB in a communique, eyewitnesses with relevant information that could lead to determining the cause of the accident should contact the bureau.

Imploring eyewitnesses to reach out through its social media handles, AIB said, “We want the public to know that we would be amenable to receiving any video clip, relevant evidence, or information any members of the public may have of the accident; that can assist us with this investigation.”

“It is not every aircraft that carries black boxes, especially helicopters, some of them have but some of them don’t have based on the manufacturer’s design. But in this case, the Bell 206-B3 helicopter did not carry any black box, AIB General Manager, Public Affairs, Tunki Oketumbi told Punch.

Oketumbi said, “A black box is just to show us the way and shorten the duration of investigation and narrow the process but we can still do investigation without it.

“Cockpit voice recorders document the conversation of the pilots but if we don’t have that, we still have the other components of the helicopter like the engine which will help in our investigation.”