Julius Baumann
30 October 2008
Johannesburg — IT HAS been a bad month for South African general aviation, with 23 people killed in 12 aircraft accidents - this compares with a total of eight accidents and a single death last October.
While the number of accidents is unacceptable, aviation insiders are unable to pin the accidents to a single factor.
Poor maintenance, lack of experience, insufficient training, and negligence are among the reasons cited, with one or more these factors playing a role in the past month's accidents.
"There is not a common thread that can be identified as being a specific cause in these recent accidents that we can take action on, other than the pilots of these aircraft were not very experienced," the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said yesterday.
"The CAA would like to assure South Africans that all aircraft accidents are of great concern to the CAA, and regulations and procedures are continually updated to address problem areas," said CAA commissioner Colin Jordaan.
The high rate of aircraft accidents in the general aviation sector has long troubled Jordaan, and earlier this year he began setting up a General Aviation Strategic Initiative committee with industry stakeholders in an attempt to slow the high accident rate. This week senior members of the airline industry who are still involved in general aviation have offered to make their expertise available.
The committee is required to come up with practical solutions to the findings raised in accident investigations. Among these is the production of visual material in the form of DVDs which illustrate and warn the industry against common mistakes by crew members which have resulted in accidents previously. The leading cause of these accidents as proven by completed accident investigations has consistently pointed to human factors.
Kim Gorringe, CEO of the Commercial Aviation Association of Southern Africa, said this week that the industry had held its first meeting with the CAA, where training was raised an a contributing factor.
"The cadre of flight instructors is far less experienced than they were in the past. Many recently qualified instructors are snapped up by the airlines.
"The trouble is that flight instruction is not seen as a profession anymore and there are few senior pilots still working as instructors," said Gorringe.
Earlier this year Jordaan outlined some of the steps planned to improve safety in the general aviation sector. One is the introduction of a crew resources management programme that has been used successfully by airlines for many years. "It was first introduced by the US in the 1980s and adopted by SAA in the wake of the Helderberg accident. Human error is a major factor in aircraft accidents, and the programme aims to equip pilots with the necessary skills to identify their errors before it is too late ," Jordaan said.
All pilots will be obliged to complete a five-day course which will equip them with the appropriate attitude to safety.
Another safety initiative that Jordaan is championing is to provide information ranging from weather reports to airport conditions to pilots via dedicated radio frequencies.
While many accidents and incidents go unreported, public attention was focused on the high rate of light aircraft accidents after six people were killed when their Piper Lance crashed while taking off from Rand Airport last week.
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