Life’s-A-Beech:
Every time a discussion appears here on PPrune about a fatal accident in sub-Saharan Africa, two different themes soon appear in the conversation. The first is “Let our crewmembers Rest In Peace, let’s not pursue this discussion further, other than of course posting our obsequies to the crewmembers we knew”. The other theme is “What factors contributed to this accident, and what can we learn from it to avoid future repetitions”. That is what I am pursuing. I did not know the crew, for that reason I can’t offer obsequies without being superficial and gratuitous.
Sub-Saharan Africa in general, and the DRC in particular, has an extraordinarily high rate of public transport aviation accidents. Possible contributory factors in the DRC include the nature of the terrain (mountainous), the nature of the weather (convective), few navigational aids, minimal aviation support infrastructure (ATC, ATS), and weak regulatory oversight.
If we take a critical and comparative look at those items individually, though, it becomes apparent to those of us who are aviation professionals that many of them are not, a priori, insurmountable barriers to safe operations. Europe and North America also have mountainous terrain, but that doesn’t cause an increase in CFIT accidents. Have a look at the approach plates for Juneau, AK or Innsbruck, Austria – the terrain you will see there is far more threatening that what lies around Bukavu. Angola and Mozambique have similar strong convective activity (and similar limited weather observation capability), but weather related accidents in those two countries are not substantially out of line with world accident rates for that same causal factor. Alaska and Northern Canada have few ground based navigational aids, many short, rough, or unimproved strips, and minimal aviation support infrastructure relative to the size of the territory, but despite this, the public is assured of a reasonable level of safety in public commercial operations in those areas.
This leaves lack of regulatory oversight as the remaining and most significant contributing factor. It’s obvious that countries that are in the midst of – or have just emerged from – a civil war are going to have a weak civil aviation regulatory authority. We can’t blame the people or the government of the DRC or South Sudan for not being able to provide ICAO standard oversight of civil aviation activities. Heck, in both cases, the governments are overwhelmed with other far more pressing concerns, such as keeping the peace, or providing the basic necessities of life to the population, or trying to rebuild infrastructure and gain some control over the country.
This is where this particular accident – as well as the AirServ accidents of 21 January 2008 and 30 August 2007 – get interesting.
None of those accidents involved locally (DRC) registered aircraft. None of those accidents involved local operators, in other words, none of the operators held a DRC operation certificate. These were all pure expatriate operations, using American or South African registered aircraft crewed by Americans or South Africans, under the operational control of American or South African companies.
Neither America or South Africa are lesser developed countries. Both of these countries have ‘first world’ standard regulatory authorities. Although one could make a weak argument that the DRC AAC (the formal name for the aviation regulatory authority of the DRC) should have provided regulatory oversight, where the heck was the South African CAA? Where was the American FAA? The South African CAA certainly must have known that Cem Air was flying that 1900C on scheduled public commercial services, and the American FAA certainly must have known that AirServ was selling the tickets and holding that aircraft out for charter. What MORAL, if not legal, obligation did these two agencies have to step in and exercise some operational control over the business activities of their citizens in the DRC?
Had AirServ been operating the same type of service in the United States, they would have been obliged to hold a Part 135 OC, and they would have been obliged to comply with all the applicable 135 rules as well as additional operations specifications that the FAA would have imposed in light of unique hazards presented by the region of operation. At the least, this would have meant dual Gamma 1 GPSRs, Class A TAWS, regular simulator training for the crews, flight and duty time limits, operator specific MELs, appropriate dispatch procedures including in-flight operational control, and flight and duty time limits. Had Cem Air been operating the same type of service in South Africa, the South African CAA would have imposed very similar requirements – presuming, of course, that the South African CAA was even willing to take the first step of granting Cem Air an operating certificate that allows them to offer public commercial service.
Why is it that operators from highly developed countries (the USA and SA) can set up operations in lesser developed countries and operate with absolute impunity from the rules that they would have to follow in their home countries? I’m not talking about short-term disaster relief here, such as a rapid response to a tsunami, earthquake, or a sudden political event – according to their own website, AirServ has been active in the DRC since 1999. That’s more than long enough to get their house in order. I don’t know how long Cem Air has been around, but it is my understanding that the principals behind Cem Air are not novices, they have been active in civil aviation in South Africa long enough to know the rules – and in several cases, have had the rules formally drawn to their attention by the South African judicial system.
The provision of air transport in any country – first world or third world – is a competitive business that rewards the operator who can offer the transportation service at the lowest cost. The only reason that the traveling public (and the pilots, for that matter) enjoy any level of safety anywhere in the world is because regulatory authorities step in and impose minimum compliance requirements. There is not a single public commercial carrier in the world who would voluntarily fit TCAS, ACAS, contemporary GPWS, CVRs, FDRs, provide crew training, provide adequate operational control, impose duty and rest requirements, operate a quality assurance system and so forth unless they were obliged to by a regulatory authority to whom they were accountable.
I’ve been involved in humanitarian aviation in sub-Saharan Africa for 20 years. I’ve been there, I’ve done it, and I’ve bought the T-shirt. I’ve had one engine blown clean off the wing of my multi-engine turbine by hostile fire, and the only reason I’m still alive today is because the operator I was working for fully complied with all the first-world rules they were subject to. They sent the engines out to factory approved overhaul facilities when they were due, which is why my remaining engine was able to take me home, rather than take me to the scene of the crash. They sent me and my co-pilot out to the best available simulator training every year, which is why he and I had some knowledge of what to do and how to do it when we lost the engine. I’m grateful that I was lucky enough to work for a company that was supervised by a competent, professional, no-nonsense regulatory authority, even though that regulatory authority was from an entirely different continent. That company (and others of equal quality) are still around today, but do you think they can compete on price with organizations that get little or no regulatory supervision? They don't even waste their time bidding.
I’m saddened and disgusted to see the same scenario repeated again and again: Operators from fully developed countries head abroad, set up shop, then willingly and knowingly fail to comply with the rules that would apply to them if they were back in their home country, thus enabling them to offer their services at the lowest price. It’s nonsense, it’s wrong, it’s immoral, and it’s not doing anyone any good, other than lining the pockets of the aircraft owners and lessors.
Look at the history of humanitarian aviation in sub-Saharan Africa over the past couple of decades. We’ve seen Rossair come in during the 1990s and undercut everyone else on price, thus establishing a dominant position in the ACMI business. They certainly didn’t comply with the rules that would have been applicable to them if they were conducting similar operations in South Africa, and before they went down, their maintenance practices fell far short of what the law in SA dictates. Aviation Assistance was in there around the same time, operating out of Europe instead of SA, but with the same non-compliance to the operational and maintenance rules that applied in their country of registration. Both Rossair and Aviation Assistance have since folded, but the same players keep popping up over and over again – according to Cem Air’s website, their maintenance manager is none other than the maintenance manager of Rossair at the time Rossair folded.
By comparison, take a look at public commercial aviation in Asia. 30 or 40 years ago, many Asian countries were in the same place as their counterparts in Africa – newly independent, or just coming out of a civil war, or otherwise starting from scratch so far as aviation safety and regulatory oversight is concerned. Since then, local (domestic) carriers have emerged, and thanks to assistance put in place by ICAO, IATA, and others, both the carriers and the local regulatory agencies have developed their operational skills and established a level of safety that, while perhaps not perfect, is at least showing steady improvement from year to year. Would they have been able to accomplish this if foreign operators were in their country eating their lunch and operating with impunity from the law? Not damn likely.
I’m not suggesting here that expatriate aviation operations are inherently wrong. What I am saying is that it is absolutely wrong that an operator from a country that knows how to do things right and has legislation in place mandating that things should be done right – whether that is South Africa, the United States, Denmark, or elsewhere – should be able to operate in a lesser-developed country without being obliged to follow the same rules that would apply to them at home. That is the point that needs to be pressed home, and until the regulatory authorities do this, this same sad and familiar scenario of ‘yet another foreign registered aircraft crashes in a lesser developed country’ is going to continue to be repeated over and over again.
If foreign operators were obliged by their regulatory authority to follow the same standards abroad that apply to them at home, and the regulatory agencies of the state of registration kept a close eye on what their operators do abroad, the foreign operators would (at first) offer the traveling public a clear operational and safety advantage compared to domestic operators in lesser developed countries. But, at least the contract price structure would enable the domestic operators to start up and attempt to grab their share of the pie by offering the same level of safety as their first world competitors. That would benefit our industry, and would benefit the traveling public (and the crews).
Last edited by V1... Ooops; 6th Sep 2008 at 22:56.