The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has explained that the 75-year-old pilot and 70-year-old co-pilot who flew the private aircraft that landed on a road in the Ogwashi-Uku area of Delta State were not in violation of applicable aviation regulations because the aircraft carried United States registration and both pilots held American Federal Aviation Administration licenses, making them subject to US age and operational standards rather than Nigeria’s commercial pilot age limit of 65.
NCAA Director of Operations, Licensing, and Training Captain Don Spiff, speaking in a television interview, said the aircraft’s American registration meant it operated under FAA Parts 91 and 135 regulations, under which neither pilot was considered overaged and both were within the parameters permitted for their licenses and medical certifications. He said Nigerian commercial pilot age limits applied to those flying commercially with Nigerian licenses and did not govern foreign-registered aircraft operated by foreign-licensed crews.
Spiff said the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau had jurisdiction over the incident as a serious aviation occurrence and had already launched a full investigation, meaning the NCAA was not at liberty to preempt findings or draw conclusions about causes. He said the investigation would determine whether the flight crew had any ulterior motive for landing on the road and would examine all circumstances including the approach conditions at Asaba airport that led the crew to execute a missed approach before the road landing occurred.
He was critical of one specific aspect of the crew’s conduct that he said was not in dispute: the decision to depart from the road without obtaining clearance was unauthorized, amounted to a kamikaze maneuver in aviation terminology, and would attract penalties. He said the NCAA had already suspended the aircraft’s commercial certificate as a direct consequence of the incident.
He said Nigerian airspace remained safe and that the incident should be viewed as isolated rather than indicative of systemic failure, noting that a single serious occurrence across an extended period of normal operations did not represent a pattern warranting broader alarm about airspace integrity.
