The difficulty encountered by travelers, airlines that caused flight diversions, cancellations would be a thing of the past as the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency would begin the calibration of Category 2 and category 3 of Instrument Landing System (ILS) of both 18R and 18L of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos Tuesday.
To be calibrated is the glideslope as every other component are said to be working perfectly.
The cheery news however came as the calibration will be done with the new acquired calibration $8.5 million calibration airplane which would help to bring down the cost of hiring foreign firms to assist the country in calibrating her navigational aids.
The crew to operate the aircraft were said to have arrived the country on British Airways today with plans to begin the calibration of equipment on the two Lagos airport runways.
The calibration according to a reliable source who works with the Ministry of Aviation told our correspondent that the aircraft could not be used because the crew had to undergo training, stressing that since calibration is a specialized aspect of flight operation, the crew had to be properly train.
What the Federal Government did was to hire experts in calibration with the newly acquired plane.
While presenting the airplane to the public, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika said, “The agony of contracting it to South Africa at about $500,000 every six months is over. Our airspace is safer. Thanks Mr. President, we started and finished during your regime.”
Explaining the usefulness of the aircraft, Sirika said, “The purpose of this aircraft is to calibrate our equipment and aids in the country for the purpose of flight operations. We used to have one in Nigeria but for the last two decades, we never had one.”
He added that the procurement of the aircraft was based on the fact that when the Abuja airport runway was being constructed, there was the need to recalibrate all the landing aids at the time.
According to him, “This is to ensure they are working in perfect order.”