17th December, 2012
The Nigerian Navy has explained that its fleet of helicopters, including the crashed Agusta helicopter marked NN07 is properly maintained and serviced regularly in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications.
“In order to ensure serviceability of helicopters, a certified technical support engineer from Agusta Westland is retained in Nigeria by Nigerian Navy at a huge cost to support maintenance efforts. The engineer in collaboration with Nigerian Navy aircraft engineers certifies the air worthiness of the helicopters before any deployment.
“As at the time of the incident, the helicopter had flown 1704 flight hours. Her last scheduled routine maintenance was concluded on 19 November, 2012 and was cleared for operations on 20 November, 2012 by certified technical support engineer. When the aircraft crashed, it was having more than 80 flight hours before the next scheduled routine maintenance. The Nigerian Navy pilots are very experienced. Infact, the Captain in command has flown over 800 hours while co-pilot had flown over 300 hours….
“As you are all aware, an accident investigation board has been constituted to unravel the remote and immediate causes of the unfortunate incident. Therefore, the Nigerian Navy will not want to pre-empt the findings of the investigation….
“The aircraft just took off. About two, three minutes from take off when the incident happened. Whatever must have been responsible for the explosion, that Naval Headquarters cannot tell now. We will wait until the investigation board comes out with their finding.
Six persons died in the Saturday crash of the Agusta helicopter in the Bayelsa Creek. They included the governor of Kaduna state, Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa and the former National Security Adviser, Andrew Owoye Azazi, their aides, the pilot and co-pilot.