By Dele Eniola
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) says it will check the activities of unapproved aviation fuel marketers involved in the supply of contaminated Jet-A1 to unsuspecting airlines.
Capt. Musa Nuhu, Director-General, NCAA, made this known in a zoom meeting with aviation correspondents on Thursday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the sector has had four incidents of contaminated Jet-A1 fuel with water discovered from commercial aircraft tanks.
On July 20, NCAA suspended Boeing 737 planes in Max Air fleet over contaminated aviation fuel, and
on July 7, another incident of shutdown of Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) due to heavy water contamination occurred in Yola.
Similarly, on April 28, an incident of APU shutdown during engine start occurred in Abuja due to fuel contamination, while on April 30, an incident of inflight engine failure following a fuel filter bypass occurred in Abuja.
There were however no accidents recorded in all the above incidents.
Nuhu said in the course of investigation, it was discovered that some unapproved aviation fuel marketers found their ways into the airports, thereby supplying the commodity to unsuspecting airlines.
The director-general said it was discovered during a meeting with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission/Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), that some fuel suppliers were operating at Nigerian airports illegally.
He said NCAA was furnished with a list of approved aviation fuel companies by the DPR but discovered that some suppliers currently operating at the airports were not on the list.
He added that NCAA would also inform the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) about the development with a view to stop the illegal operators.
“Investigation is ongoing, we are doing this in collaboration with the DPR and we have got the list of all companies approved by the DPR.
“We found out that some were not approved, we will write FAAN about this to ensure they withdraw their services until they meet all requirements.
“Any Jet-A1 supplier must be approved because it needs a lot of standards. Although, there was a gap between the DPR and NCAA but that has been closed.
“The issue of fuel contamination is not acceptable and no international airline has reported fuel contamination but it is an alarming thing that needs to be looked into.
“We have set up a committee comprising representatives of relevant agencies to look at the entire system and make recommendations, however, it is still the responsibility of the airline pilot to check his fuel,” he said.
Speaking on an impending audit, Nuhu said NCAA was working round the clock to close some gaps identified at some airports, revealing that the audit would take place from Aug. 30 to Sept. 11. (NAN)
