Stella Oduah
With the adoption of Accident Victims Policy by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Nigeria is now poised to establish the long talked Air Disaster Assistance scheme which will be backed by an Act from the National Assembly.
Shortly before he was removed as the director general of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Demuren, disclosed that the regulatory body was working with the Central Bank of Nigeria to establish a scheme which would provide financial support to the relatives of those who may lose their lives in air accidents.
He said that the scheme would be in the form of no fault insurance so that when a passenger buys ticket fare a little amount of money, about N500 would be added to the fare and this will be put in a pool of compensation fund that will be kept with the Central Bank and will be used to assist those who lost their loved ones in accident.
In adopting that policy ICAO has directed its 191 member states to firmly commit to supporting the victims of aviation accidents and their family members.
Demuren had noted that the compensation which the airlines are stipulated to pay by law is too small so the scheme will provide assistance to those who lost their lives or are severely injured in air accidents.
Many countries had established similar bodies, including the US, which has Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996, which provides assistance to the victims of major US aviation accidents.
THISDAY gathered that the plan to establish this scheme started after the tragic air accidents involving ADC, Sosoliso and Bellview airlines that killed over 300 people and many Nigerians who lost their relatives in pains, sorrow and in poverty.
A source told THISDAY that a member of House Committee on Aviation had concluded plans to propose the bill to the House of Representatives and after the body is established as no fault insurance scheme it would be passed into law and it will become an Act.
The adoption of the Accident Victims Policy was announced by ICAO on March 4 and while many states have moved to adopt the policy into their own laws, others tended to be slow in doing that but Nigeria is envisaged to be one of the first countries that will adopt the policy as it has already stepped up plans to establish the no fault insurance scheme before the ICAO adoption of the policy.
ICAO also adopted a new Safety Management Annex during its recent Safety Week 2013 as it confirmed 2012 was one of the safest years on record for global aviation. There were 3.2 accidents per million departures in 2012 -- a total of 99 accidents in about 31 million flights -- and 2012 aviation fatalities declined to372 from 414 in 2011.
The new annex, Annex 19, supports ICAO’s global safety strategy, which calls for improved standardisation, increased collaboration among aviation stakeholders, new information-sharing initiatives, and prioritising investments in technical and human resources required to ensure safe operations.
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