Azman Air Indicted By NCAA Audit Report

A detailed audit report by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA of Azman Air has found the company guilty of "several misdeeds".

The airline had its operations suspended recently over suspected safety violations in order to enable the NCAA to carry out its investigations.

The audit which covered management, flight operations, maintenance, and economic operations of the airline drew its criteria from Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations NCARs Part 5, 6, 8,9 & 20 to access whether it was due to return to flight operations.

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In the audit findings published by NCAA and signed by the Director-General, Captain Nuhu Musa on April 2, 2021, the agency listed many violations of the airline and said Azman Air does not have the right personnel required for Commercial Air Transport Operations.

It also stated that the airline violated Section 12 (1) of the Civil Aviation Act, 2006 as regards non-remittance of five percent of the Ticket Sales Charge and Cargo Sales Charge. As a result, Azman Air owes the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority the sum of N1,545,262,120.31 as of December 2020, the regulatory body said.

Adding to its list of misdeeds, the airline was allegedly found not to be in compliance with the provisions of Nig.CARs 9.2.2.10 and 20.3.1.1, relating to Safety Management System establishment.

Some of the audit findings read: “This is evidenced by the lack of a Safety Manager or Safety Officers to run the Safety Management System. Lack of this has also resulted in poor management of Flight Data Monitoring Reports for safety improvements.

“In the case of Management personnel required for Commercial Air transport Operations, Azman Air was found not to be in compliance with the provisions of Nig.CARs 9.2.2.2 (a) and (e) (2) with regards to the provision of resources and discharge of the duties of the Accountable Manager,” the report stated.

“This is evidenced by complete non­-staffing of the Safety Management Department and staffing of the Quality Management Department with only one officer, thereby making it impossible to effectively implement Safety and Quality Management Systems functions as required by Nig.CARs 9.2.2.3 and 9.2.2.10, respectively”.

It went ahead to say that “The Accountable Manager exhibited a lack of understanding of his duties and responsibilities as contained in the Operations Manuals."

The NCAA had in a statement on March 19, 2020, stressed that the airline had been involved in three separate incidents resulting in damage to the aircraft. Hence the need to carry out a full audit of its Boeing aircraft, thereby grounding the airline over safety concerns.