The Bell 206-B3 helicopter that crashed on Friday at Salvation Road, Opebi, Ikeja, Lagos State, has no black box, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) has claimed.
AIB is an investigating body that is in charge of all aviation-related accidents and incidents in Nigeria. The agency noted that investigation has commenced without the backbox.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations specialized agency for global aviation regulation said black boxes, also known as flight recorders, are one of the most reliable resources for the improvement of aviation safety. Saying audio recording from cockpit voice recorder are important for post-accident safety analysis, it helped in knowing what transpired on the aircraft (mostly the pilots’ last conversation) before the accidents.
The copter with the Nationality Registration Marks 5N-BQW operated by Quorum Aviation crashed at about two minutes to reach its destination into a fence separating two houses at 16A, Salvation Road, Opebi, Ikeja Lagos.
The destination of the copter is the Murtala Muhammed Airport. It has three persons on board. Two of the crew members died at the spot of the accident, the survivor had a severe condition and died a few hours later at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.
The AIB on Friday in a statement called on the general public to aid its investigation to unravel circumstances leading to the crash.
It implored eyewitnesses to contact it through its social media platforms. “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.”
AIB General Manager, Public Affairs, Tunji Oketumbi, said, “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.
“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.”
Oketumbi said that a preliminary report on the possible cause of the crash would be released and urged the general public to desist from assuming the cause of the accident until the report is released.
