The Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu has given his opinion on the theft of critical component in Arik Air’s aircraft. He noted that contrary to what the public believes, the situation was not a case of vandalization as whoever removed the parts had access, knew what they were after and removed professionally without damaging anything else .
Captain Nuhu described the theft in the Arik aircraft as sad but stressed that the incident is an isolated one and not enough to categorize the nation’s airport security as porous. In his words, he said, “What happened is that somebody who obviously knew where the aircraft is, somebody who knew obviously what he was doing, went to the E and E2 Compartments, walked in there and removed a component professionally without damaging anything. So, figure out that for yourself.
“It is very clear that I cannot go to the very technical part of the aircraft and remove something there. I must know something about it and I am not new to the system. Whoever did that job knew what he was doing. The security agencies are investigating the issue.
On security at the airport, the NCAA helmsman said, “How many aircraft have been vandalized in Nigeria in the past 10 years? Let’s not use a single issue to destroy our country. This is one incident, which seems to have been done by a professional, maybe an insider. Have we had any case of people going to vandalize an aircraft in the last 10 years? This is one case and we should not use it to destroy the reputation of our industry.”
He noted that investigations were ongoing on the incident and urged everyone to wait for the outcome of the investigation.