The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), on Friday announced that it had recovered the Black Box of the Bristow helicopter that crashed into the Lagos lagoon on Wednesday.
The Black Box contains the Cockpit Voice and the Flight Data Recorders.
Commissioner of the Accident Investigation Bureau, Dr Felix Abali, made this known while displaying the two devices to aviation correspondents at the bureau’s headquarters in Lagos. The AIB statement, signed by its spokesperson, Tunji Oketumbi, reads:
THE Accident Investigation Bureau announced yesterday that the flight recorders, popularly known as black boxes, to the Sikosky 76 helicopter that crashed into the lagoon in Oworonshoki area of Lagos on Wednesday 12 August, 2015 have been recovered.
The Sikosky 76 helicopter marked 5N-BGD and operated by Bristow Helicopters was believed to have departed SEDCO oil platform offshore and crashed shortly before landing at Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.
The search party led by Julius Berger with the assistance of a hired diver located the recorders, which are expected to assist the investigators in unraveling the cause of the accident in which four passengers and two crew members were fatally injured. Six other passengers are receiving treatment at a private hospitals.
The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) contains data generated from different parts of the aircraft including the engines and the avionics while the Cockpit Voice Recorder will unveil conversations within the cockpit and between the pilots and the Control Tower.
The biggest part of the wreckage of the ill fated aircraft was recovered yesterday but without the black boxes. The search was resumed today.
According to AIB investigation has extended to retrieving documents and other materials from Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the airline operator. Other information will be released to the public as they unfold and according to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annexe 13.
the bureau’s headquarters in Lagos.