Is aviation in Africa really unsafe?

[DRPAM007]

“Silly Pilot, rushing for a beer in Accra= danger”

Hi BossyAussy,

Thanks for being frank and open about your African experience. I can imagine it was’nt a walk in the park for you and your fellow crew members. It’s no surprise you inappropriately tagged your post “Africa= Danger".

However, I must say that this is a classic case of a “supposedly” suitably qualified, competent, experienced and responsible aviation professional doing extremely dangerous and stupid things. The real danger in your narrative was not the lack of ATC approval to change your flight-plan route, or the tropical storms, or the potential conflict in the Sudanese airspace.



The real danger was “YOU” the captain of the flight and( by association) your copilot , who should have been the voice of reason in this sad self incriminating narrative of multiple safety and ethical violations.

I assume you hold a valid ATPL from a country with ( supposedly) unquestionable training standards( Australia or USA), which details the role and responsibilities of the commander before and during a flight. Your license and role require that you plan and conduct the flight in a safe manner after obtaining the relevant information pertinent to your route; weather, fuel, notams, etc. I flown into Australia regularly for the past 4 years and I Know how your CASA and ATC demand strict compliance of all applicable regulations.
If you were faced with similar circumstances in Aussie-land, will you have the audacity to carry out the same actions you described in your narrative?

We all know law allows you to deviate from your flight plan for reasons of flight safety, however, there are contingency procedures which you are expected to comply with. Where you unaware of these procedures or in your opinion, your violations were the best options. You have 121.5, 126.9, ACARS, CPDLC, etc if you need to avoid weather or have an in-flight emergency.

You wrongly assume your aircraft position will not be detected because you’re not under an ATC radar controller but don’t forget there are other types of radar. You do know that if you have a mode S transponder, aircraft equipped with ADS-B display can track you. Unless, of course you intentionally switched off your transponder to evade being detected on radar? (Procedural violation).



I assume you also know that both N’Djamena and Niamey FIRS have got ADS/CPDLC albeit on trial basis.
You’re also aware that in NAT MNPS airspace you may not be under radar control or CPDLC equipped, your position is still being actively tracked.

In addition to intentionally leaving your cleared route without ATC authorization (airspace violation) you also decided ( while on an IFR flight plan and IMC conditions?) to mislead both monitoring ATC as well as other aircraft by passing fake position reports. (license violation).

If you had needed any search and rescue, your intentional lying about your position will possibly compromise the successful outcome of the service without a valid ELT signal.


Also, if you indeed kept a navigation log, did you make false entries to correspond with your deceitful position reports or did you recorded the actual aircraft position(License violation).

Did your employer know that you placed their $USD130million investment at risk by iintentionally entering hazardous airspace that your notams required you to avoid? You were lucky to escape without being intercepted or worse still shot down by of the warring factions.


You know that you're expected to file an ASR for this kind of event, considering that you believe Africa posed a danger to your flight. It'll make interesting reading.


You misunderstand the essence behind the commanders’ discretion or “executive decision”. It is not the power to complete a flight by any means even if it endangering lives and property. It is using sound judgement to minimize risk in the face of extraordinary threats to flight safety. Sadly the threats were the two of you in that cockpit.

You had all the safe options any competent crew would consider. Like, delay the flight and file a new flight plan, wait for the storm to pass, or take extra fuel ( you said it was cheap there) to navigate around them.


Did you take these risks because you were under some commercial pressure, duty hours, license expires at midnight, or you just fancied doing things a bit different?

At the end of your post, I sense a feeling of guilt, for you referred to yourself as “rogue whale” (nice catch phrase for “Silly Pilot”) and then tried to use John Wayne as an excuse for your cowboy behavior. I hope you know that John Wayne is not a real cowboy, but and actor with fake bullets; and you are not an actor, but a real Pilot with and if you were shot at in the Sudan, the bullets will be real.

BossyAussy, you are most likely not an African, but you have come to constitute a serious safety threat to the African airspace as exhibited by your own narrative. It just takes the biscuit to see people who should know better, making things more difficult for those working hard to see safer African skies.

What did you expect, with such a thoughtless post? A pat in the back and a
“Well done matey, for running the gauntlet and making it out in one piece”?

All you’ve shown is Africa airspace is endangered by the risk takers like yourself, people who think they’ll always get away with “willful violations”. It is also the responsibility of all well-meaning professionals who read such postings on Pprune to condemn the reckless disregard for safe practices exhibited by people like you.
If you have any doubts as to your actions, send your narrative on the conduct of the flight in question to CASA, FAA or wherever your license was issued and let me know if it got revoked or just suspended.

By the way, a more appropriate title to your post should be “Silly Pilot, rushing for a beer in Accra= danger ”