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Agency wants aircraft to carry emergency beacons
THE National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) has called on all airline operators in the country to equip their aircraft with modern emergency beacons to make it possible for them to be easily located during emergencies.
He stated that if all aircraft were equipped with emergency beacons, it would be easy for the search-and-rescue satellite to pick signals from the beacons for easy location of the aircraft.
The NASRDA boss explained that the advice had become necessary in view of the Bellview Flight 210 crash at Lisa village, Ifo Council in Ogun State on October 22, which took more than
17 hours before the crash site was discovered.
Prof. Borofice explained that if an aircraft was equipped with emergency beacon, when disaster happened the beacon would be activated to locate the affected aircraft.
The NASRDA chief further explained that if aircraft were equipped, whenever disaster occurred, the beacons would generate some signals, which would be picked up by a satellite known as Cospas-sarSat, and processed immediately.
His words: "When disaster occurs, the beacon will be identified and then information will be sent to Local User Terminal.
"There, it will be processed again and the locality or position of the beacon will be identified and then the information will be sent to Mission Control Centre.
"That is what we have in Nigeria. It is then that the Mission Control Centre will be able to give us information that the aircraft has crashed at a particular point."
He explained that NigeriaSat-1 could not detect the Bellview crash site because it was not a disaster detecting satellite.
Borofice said: "Where NigeriaSat-1 comes in is that when National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA), which has the Mission Control Centre, informs us of the location, giving us the coordinate. We will now programme that coordinate in NigeriaSat-1.
"Then NigeriaSat-1, when passing over Nigeria, will now image that area to provide map for the rescue mission. You will need a map to show you where the road will be for evacuation.
"NigeriaSat-1 is not going to detect the crash or prevent the crash. It is after the location has been identified by NEMA that information will be given to us and then we programme will be given to us and then we programme the information into our satellite and provide map for NEMA to use in their rescue operation".
Borofice stated that in a disaster like the Bellview crash, the only search-and-rescue satellite already in space that could detect the location of the crash was the Cospas-sarSat.
"All we need to do is to ensure that all our aircraft carry emergency beacons that can be activated in case of any disaster and the satellite in space will pick this beacon because this satellite is equipped with certain search and rescue repeaters, which will pick up the signal from the beacon", he stated.
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