The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has declared that it would come hard on aviation fuel suppliers (JETA1) found to have supplied contaminated fuel to airlines in the country by withdrawing their licence and banning them from operating in the aviation sector.
The Director General of the CAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu, made the declaration following the discovery that a Max Air aircraft Boeing B737 developed a technical fault during a voyage to Yola as a result of its fuel found to have been contaminated with a large volume of water.
Speaking on a zoom meeting with aviation correspondents, the CAA boss disclosed that whilst the agency has commenced investigation to ascertain the supplier of the adulterated fuel, NCAA will further meet with the appropriate regulatory agency in the oil industry to inform them of their standard.
He said, “We have started an investigation and we have identified three aviation fuel companies they took fuel from that day. They bought fuel in Lagos, Abuja and Kano the same day. We will mete out sanctions where necessary. We are going to hold a meeting with the regulatory commission in order to ensure compliance with standards.
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“We are going to review all the marketers and withdraw their licence to sell jet fuel if we find them wanting. If the problem is from MAX Air, we will take appropriate action and if it is from the oil marketer, we will also take appropriate action as well” he told correspondents via zoom.
Speaking further, the NCAA helmsman affirmed that airlines and their captains were responsible for checks on the fuel put into their planes before operations.
“These are all spelled out in the operating manuals. It is the responsibility of the airline and the captain to check the quality of fuel supplied to them, NCAA staff can’t be at all fuel stations, we don’t have enough staff to go into all stations.”