The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has decommissioned the category 3 Instrument Landing System (ILS) installed a couple of few years with a category 2 system because of the unreliability of the category of the category 3 landing tool at the Lagos airport.
There are indications that the airfield lighting system which has a category one status is incompatible with a category 3 ILS, which in turn continues to fail integrity tests, forcing pilots, air traffic controllers and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to call for investigation into the reliability of the equipment.
ILS is a radio navigation system that provides shortrange guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather. In its original form, it allows an aircraft to approach until it is 200 feet (61m) over the ground, within a half mile (800m) of the runway.
It provides lateral guidance for an aircraft, sky guidance for the aircraft, and longitudinal guidance for the aircraft when coming into landing.
Bringing the aircraft this close to the runway dramatically improves the weather conditions in which a safe landing can be made. Later versions of the system, or “categories,” have further reduced the minimum altitudes.
The ILS at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, is working; but is said to have its own issue which is capable of compromising air safety. To forestall a mishap, the agency decided to completely remove the problematic category 3 ILS at the Lagos airport because of the strategic location of the aerodrome.
The Director of Electronic Engineering Services (DEES), NAMA, Engr Teresa Ihenachor, told New Telegraph yesterday that pilots were always complaining about aircraft misapproach, because of the unreliability of the equipment, adding that the category 3 ILS that had been completely removed for a new one because of its unreliability, adding that it had never passed calibration test.
She said: “We are not supposed to have Cat 2 or cCat 3 because airfield lighting is Cat1 and the airport; we categorise all those things. No matter the type of ILS you bring, it depends on all these things. We were having cat 3 by Thales and they are giving us a lot of problems.
Based on that, I decided to decommission it. I am installing a cat 2 ILS in Lagos that is going on. I went to carry out an inspection on it.
“We have CAT 3 in Abuja and Lagos, but that of Lagos is very problematic. Ever since I took over as Director of Electronic Engineering Services, it has been giving me headache. Pilots are always complaining about misapproach. It is not reliable.
