By Songa wa Songa
The Citizen Correspondent
Dar es Salaam. Grave disaster looms in Tanzania’s skies, in the wake of revelations that  the  local airline industry is progressively employing unqualified pilots.The air accident investigation unit of the ministry of Transport attributes three out of 12 aircraft accidents that occurred in 2011  to  the ineptitude of inexperienced pilots.

The pilots, according to the ministry’s annual report, were allowed to venture into the skies despite several shortcomings, including blatant disregard for safety and operational guidelines.     
 
 The report, signed by the deputy chief inspector of air accidents, Mr J. Nyamwihura, says while 2011 was the safest in the aviation sector in the last five years, the rate of accidents involving unqualified personnel was alarming.
“Acts of unqualified pilots taking command of aircraft, some of themcommercial, appears to be on the rise,” the report released over a week ago reads.

The report says the main reason for the “unqualified pilot accidents” is the growing shortage of pilots in the aviation industry. “This shortage is worldwide but appears to be particularly acute in the country because the government has not trained pilots for two decades (20 years),” the reports noted.        

However, when reached for comment, top officials at the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA), the national  industry overseer organ, played down the findings by the investigation unit. They  are jittery over accusations of insufficient oversight inspection directed at the authority by the ministry, terming them as “misdirected and dangerous”.TCAA director general Mr Fadhili Manongi told The Citizen on Sunday in an interview that the report unfairly piles individual pilot error and operator misdemeanour on the authority.

“It is our responsibility to ensure that only qualified and licensed pilots take command of aircrafts and I can assure you that not a single unqualified pilot has been licensed. But that does not mean we have the capacity to man every operator’s office and each plane taking off to monitor their conduct”.

He said TCAA does not only countercheck with licensing authorities of foreign pilots serving in the country but also deploys inspectors to respective countries to personally examine records and aircraft maintenance facilities without failure.

According to the ministry’s findings, one fatal accident in 2011 involved a junior pilot who had no instrument rating and had commanded a Dar es Salaam-Kilimanjaro  flight without a flight plan and was flying under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) at night.

Another pilot who overran a runway and collided with vegetation at Migure airstrip was said to have had zero hours experience on the type and aircraft involved and which was also overloaded.Additionally, an 18-year-old boy with only 106 hours of flying experience flew into a valley and crashed while attempting to climb out.

The investigation unit noted  that he had no training on mountain flying and had left Kilimanjaro International Airport without collecting weather information.

“Laxity among operators and air crew is partly attributable to the inadequate level of safety oversight inspections. It is recommended that oversight inspections be increased particularly at airports, notably Julius Nyerere International Airport,” the report reads.

However,  Mr Manongi said it is not only untrue but also impossible for a pilot to take off without filing a flight plan and gathering weather information. As for the flying hours, he said a pilot is required to complete at least 40 hours of flying in order to pass airmanship before he/she is awarded a Private Pilot Licence (PPL).

Mr Manongi allayed safety fears by declaring his authority one of the safest and most respected in Africa, arguing that the bureau’s competence has been tested and passed by notable international bodies whose credibility is beyond reproach.

“Interestingly, the very same last year whose events this particular report is based on is when we were certified by the International  Standardisation Organisation (ISO) number 9001:2008, after a long and thorough scrutiny of our operations,” he said. He, however, acknowledged inadequate personnel as one of the challenges facing the authority. Of the seven minimum flight operation inspectors required, the authority has only 4 (57 per cent) and only seven airworthiness inspectors are available out of the required 10, which is equivalent to 70 per cent.

“That is why this year we are sending 10 pilots and 10 engineers for training abroad in a bid to curb the shortage of manpower,” he said

For his part, the TCAA director of safety and regulations, Mr John Njawa, said Tanzania is much safer compared to other countries because its standards are set higher than most countries in Africa and the rest of the world.

“We document even the minutest events and classify them as accidents because security is our absolute priority. In other countries, such small, non-fatal issues are regarded as mere incidents but not accidents. So, if we lower ourselves to other countries’ standards, then our ratings will be very impressive,” he said.

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites