Cultural aspects
Salimedj's post nicely sums up some of the cultural aspects at play:
- PT6A is not allowed to voice his opinion
- dirty laundry should be kept inside
- we pay you so shut up
- if you don't like it, then leave; we don't need your input
- other airlines make mistakes so we can hide behind that
- have "respect", i.e. wave the flag for us or shut up some more
All matters that point towards a rather steep cockpit gradient and not such a safety-orientated company culture. Consistent with my experience of 4 years of flying in Libya.
R09 is favoured by ATC in the morning for their convenience. Requests for a change to 27 are met by "not available due to traffic". 80% of ATC instructions are crude vectoring, "extend downwind", or "direct TW" (the locator for R09). Standard holds are almost never used, instead it becomes panicky "make a 360 to the right". Often you'd find yourself at 2000' above TW and cleared for a visual (650' too high on final). If half the navaids aournd HLLT work (even if it's on 'test' or without ident) it's a good day. The VOR approach for 09 brings you in at quite an offset angle. GPS/RNAV approaches do not exist (thus are not allowed) for HLLT. When executing a go-around once at HLLT and informing tower accordingly I was told "negative, continue" followed by "execute 360 to the right". We were at 300' at the time.
Low level aerobatics are the order of the day around TW for R09. "Incompetent at worst, gung-ho at best" is a very accurate description for much flying I've seen displayed at and around Tripoli.
Common denominator in much of this: a (lack of the right) cultural attitude towards safety and accountability.