Prioritising safety

Prioritising safety

Following two tragic airline accidents in less than two years, several near-misses and regular flight delays, the Civil Aviation Authority has said it will carry out inspections on all passenger airplanes being used by private airlines.

While the move is a welcome one, it remains to be seen how thorough these checks will be and if any irregularities and technical problems are found with the planes, how the CAA will deal with them.

The aviation body has said it will not carry out checks on the national carrier Pakistan International Airlines since it underwent checks a few months ago. However, it must also be remembered that the European Union has previously banned PIA from operating in its airspace and the national carrier faces the same threat again.

The aviation body, as well as the private and national airline must do all that is needed to ensure passenger safety before allowing their fleet to be airborne.

It is also believed that several pilots hired by private airlines have worked past their retirement age but are still handed the responsibility of carrying hundreds of passengers everyday. How can the authorities ensure such issues as retirement age and fitness for flying are followed strictly by private carriers?

Apart from checks by the CAA, what additional measures need to be taken to make the flights secure?

Should independent bodies, apart from the CAA, be involved in carrying out these checks? Should the government seek international help in making flight safety the top priority?

How should the CAA’s standards be raised to rid air travel of the threats it faces in Pakistan?

Dawn.com invites its readers to give their views and suggestions.

 

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29 Responses to “Prioritising safety”

  1. Faisal Haroon says:

    Not that am propagating PIA I know PIA is also not in best shape still it is a fact that in spite of average age of the PIA fleet is more than in the Industry practice PIA is the only airline in the Country and within the region also with more experienced staff in every department whether engineering or crew. It is a well established airlines and safest to fly in the Country at least if not in the region. The engineers are better trained more experienced, pilots have on an a average more hours and better trained in the region and within the Country than any other airlines .PIA still has better systems, better SOPs, policies, crew resource management, and has derived better standards as it is in the aviation business for more than 60 years now. All these airlines are newer and younger thus lack expertise and have less experience required for this kind of operation. Though accidents can happened to any airline a few years back British Airways new B-777 coming from Beijing had its fuel pipes clogged. The pilot though safely put down the aircraft without loss of life but damaged the aircraft to an extent that it was not flyable again. Authorities later found out that had the pilot not tried to maintain the glideslope without power from both engines and dipped the nose to pick up a bit of speed, he would have safely been able to bring the plane in for landing. This was a typical case of a combination of procedures policy fault and Pilot error in the end. Therefore you are better off and at a lesser risk flying PIA than other budgeted Airlines it is not worth it. We really don’t know what is going on behind the doors in these organizations. There is no doubt though the a 450 plus Employee ratio per aircraft in Fleet for PIA does it no good. Overtime, organisations like WAPDA, Railways, PIA have become dumping grounds for those who don’t want to go home after retirement and those who need jobs, any job so they can sit and get paid. I have been an aviation enthusiast since my childhood and it pains me to see how PIA has slid from its prime as one of the best airlines of the world to one of the weakest financially, technically and in perception. Time to privatize it. No longer under Ministry of Defense please as a start

  2. Adnan Kakazai says:

    Please for God Sake somebody take care of PIA’s 737’s

    Unless and untill money injection with proper planning for the purchase of new aircrafts will not be done we are indeed going nowhwere. This is only a temporary thing that do inspections, do this, do that. Once the dust is settled everybody will forget it. Back to usual routine, happy or sad landings and take-off and waiting for a next incident (God forbid)

    Professionals are needed to run airlines, we have examples in front of us, airlines trained by us are second to none, why we cannot do it for ourselves, with tourism almost nil, please attract a whole lot of Pakistanis living abroad to prefer our airlines rather than who we trained. Though it takes a lot to do it, first a will and sincerity and then what may come

  3. sohaib says:

    CAA is a technical body and it should be released from the bureaucratic hold of Ministry of Defence.

    We need competent people to head such organizations, not ‘friends’ of the influential people. This is the biggest gift of this government – corruption and cronyism at its peak.

    There have been several accidents in the vicinity of Islamabad airport. So it cant be pilot error all the time.

  4. Muhammad Hussain says:

    This is the delima of the time that all our Public Organizations got politicized. Governance and functions of all these public organizations are being manipulated by political elements.In this scenario,a fair so called Inspection or Investigation is just a night mare.

  5. Nasir Shah says:

    Aviation safety and standards means EMIRATES airline. Initiated with help of PIA and now look where we stand. Our PIA fleet and Emirates are like comparing Rickshaw with BMW.

    • Syed says:

      Totally agree Nasir Sb. this has been my argument ever since I came to know about how emirates was started. We cannot fix PIA unless we curb corruption and party based appointments are stopped, due to this PIA has more workers than it actually needs. I think the review of work force is required by an independent authority and this can be the beginning. 2nd step is to bring forth revised standard operating procedures and guidelines, 3rd is to upgrade all airports systems. Safety is dependent on various elements. I have worked on various airports terminals in the world, closer to home, I have spent a lot of time working on Dubai terminal 3, where I was involved in building integration systems, flight information, instrument landing and baggage handling systems, it was my earliest project and the things I learned shocked me how much we are behind and lacking, but who ever listens to our comments right? you and I are just ordinary citizen, who managed to educate ourselves but still cannot dodge the fact the Govt. or people with power of decision lacks or fail to share our IQ. The sad story of our system.

  6. Nasir Shah says:

    Please never consider the morality of person for honesty. We should not leave one to his morality but to have check and balance system which doesn’t allow anyone honest or dishonest person to perform substandard task. Forget about the morality of person. Everyone should be watched and controlled without leaving him at the mercy of his moral character. After all everyone has weaknesses. you cannot ask policemen with 5000 Rs salary to avoid 50000 Rs bribry.

  7. Nasir Shah says:

    To make the aviation safe and efficient, we need to privatize national carrier and terminate ALL unwanted staff. Eliminate all spacial or discounted fares for all government departments and VIPs without any exception.
    This will make the system efficient and generate hidden revenue. Now the additional revenue and enhanced system can be used to enhance safety and other services.
    There should be a federal safety department independent of all government agencies to evaluate and review all airlines. The tough international standards should be applied to supervise the safety.
    These are simple rules in Capitalism which should be applied to aviation and any other retarding industry.

  8. Saddique says:

    Accident do happen and will happen. When they do happen its generally the fault of the humans involved in it. I work in aviation industry and specialise in te flight recorders ( black boxes) I amhaapyy to pass my knowledge I Pakistan CAA. I think in this incident bad weather and human error are to blame.

    CAA can and do implement rules but it’s te airlines that break them.

    • Jawwad says:

      There should also be age restrictions for the pilots with 55 maximum. Please note that an average age of male in Pakistan is around 62-64. Our pilots are well over the national averages. Some might argue pilots all over the world fly at ages of 65 but those are mostly western countries where average ages hover around 75-80.

  9. Agha Ata says:

    To make it really safe, just change three things: The owner of the airline, staff of the airline, and the planes. Period.

  10. RG says:

    Bhoja Air ceased operations in 1998 after going bankrupt and started again just a month ago with “AN AIRCRAFT PURCHASED FROM SHAHEEN AIR WHICH THEY HAD RETIRED”.
    What else would you expect. The distaster was waiting to happen any day.

    • Jawwad says:

      Exactly. Person who signed the go ahead documents is primarily criminally liable for this accident.

      • Nasir Shah says:

        Do you believe that someone will be punished for this??
        It will be a cold case file blamed on the lighting thunder and act of God. But for sure someone made money in approving the launch and will make more by closing the crash case.

        • Syed says:

          No. what started dodgy, will end the same way as well and why put the owner of airline on no fly list? start with the department that gave green light to bhoja, while you are at it, you may want to review the performance of ATCs around the country as well.

  11. James says:

    Apart from checks by the CAA, what additional measures need to be taken to make the flights secure?
    Aircrafts must be grounded crossing the age of 15 or 20. Govt should take strong steps against safety of aircraft.
    Should independent bodies, apart from the CAA, be involved in carrying out these checks?
    No. CAA is better one but it must follow strict rules and do not allow aircraft if it lags in its safety.

  12. jeol says:

    age is not concern ,guilty is concern in his moment ,what kind of fleet you offering your passengers and crew .old always good but only for gold not for this old age plane i believed being and insurance company stop instancing these kind old rickhaws

  13. syed ali says:

    There are two sides to a coin.
    There are the airlines, and there is the regulatory body.
    Two accidents occur under very similar circumstances: inclement weather, landing process, at Islamabad airport approach, etc.
    Perhaps some systems at the airport and facilities offered by the CAA are flawed.
    With all the monies being collected in the form of taxes and levies by CAA, why cannot fool-proof systems be installed and enforced.
    Perhaps Islamabad airport is obsolete, and the move to the new airport has to be put on the fast track.
    But then who is going to check the lapses of the regulator.

    • Syed says:

      Airport is not obsolete, the facilities are, correct me if I am wrong but I have not seen a Doppler radar at Islamabad airport, again, I believe we have the infrastructure, but it requires upgrade, but in a corrupt system, how can you create a positive impact?

    • Nasir Shah says:

      Well here we have two sides of coin and both have corruption, so which one you want to flip.

  14. Amjad Wyne says:

    The author begins by complementing the government by saying “the move is a welcome one”. With all due respect, that is not how your opinion should have begun. The line should have said, “127 innocent lives were lost and is that all you were going to do? – shame on you”. That said, here is why – one cannot gurantee the safety of even an autorikshaw by inspecting its tires once. These flying machines are not bicycles or toys – when they break up in the air, there is no escape. The only ones that survive such crashes are the ones that sent these planes up in the first place. There are no countries in the world where “inspecting” once will be considered acceptable and the author complementing such a move will be let go. These flying machines require dedicated, well trained organizations to maintain and certify passenger planes for flying – not an oil change from a petrol pump.

  15. Ashah says:

    Just read the report on the findings of the Crash of AIR BLUE which was put out on PPrune.org a Pilots forum. It concluded that it was missteps by the PIC (Pilot in Command) & ATC was cleared. old aircrafts do not mean they are not airworthy, it’s matter of maintence and they will fly for ever safely the plane flew prefectly from karachi to ISB . and going into a thunderstorm on a circling approach on RWY 12 was sure shot recipe for disaster even a microbust lasts 10 seconds or less it is not possible to recover at low height. So it goes back to CRM( crew Resource management) and pilot error I hate to say that I bet the experts are going to come back to the same conclusion Pilot ERROR so why is the media and government playing Politics with this ?

    • Syed says:

      No they already found an escape door, “act of nature”, it’s easy to blame God because no one can challenge it. sure if you tell it to a villager !!! what about those who managed to learn something? we know it could have been avoided, we know pilots are missing crucial training. we know the system is in dire need of upgrading. Invest and things will get better but who will be handling the transparency of it all? million dollar question.

  16. M. HUSSAIN says:

    It is a good move. In recent Bhoja Air Crash, I would like to ask why air control tower allowed the flight to land when the weather was so bad? Why the pilot was not pre-informed? Why the pilot was not asked to divert the plane to some nearby airport? These are crucial questions to be answered. The thunderstorm can be forecast and the weather forecast these days is fairly accurate with modern technology. In the on going investigation, these questions should also be addressed.

    • Syed says:

      technology is there but did we upgrade to it? who can tell us how “in touch” we are with latest standards?

  17. Khalid Pathan says:

    In the first place the Commission must get rid of those technical staff who are incompetent and were appointed through back door or through the Quota system, denying meritorious, capable, qualified and competent personal an opportunity to carry out this highly significant Inspections of Air Carriers to ascertain their air worthiness. Next is to look into the process and the frequency of such Inspections.

    The CAA must ensure that safety checks are conducted at the accepted International Standard. Future appointments in not only CAA but all other Institutions of Significance must be done on merit only.

    • Dilawar says:

      We are talking now. You have correctly identified the problem. Most comments in this forum lack insight.
      We should start by asking 1) Role of CAA in the most recent crash 2) History of all operation and maintenance record of this particular plane 3) Records including the educational , professional training and flying records for the cockpit crew 4) Lack of ground equipment such as Radars and other various transmitter and receivers at the airport 5) Role of Meteorology department in this crash 4) Role of search and rescue teams 6) Role of Bhoja air maintenance team. In my opinion Bhoja air’s maintencne records should have been sealed on day one. Any side stepping of rules allowed by CAA should result acking for DG of CAA. Ministry of defense has it plate full so they should let CAA handle this situation.

      • Syed says:

        Dilawar sb. I am sure you remember Multan crash, we know why it happened. How many people were punished by CAA or what guidelines were enforced after that accident? that tells you a bit about our system of our check and balance. Govt should dig down in its pockets, bring in NTSB and let them review and propose corrective actions. I bet just Greg Fieth is enough to suggest a complete overhaul of the system, but that is just my opinion.

  18. Zahid says:

    An independent body must be form in this scenario which might work along with CAA, on the basis of co operation. In this period of time anyone can get any clearance certificate, by merely paying heavy amounts.
    we as passengers can’t trust the channel until the clarifications are made on international standards.

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