From Post Courier
Probe into Airlines PNG crash underway
By JACOB POK
The PNG Accident Investigations Commission has progressed investigations into the Airlines PNG plane crash in Madang in 2011 which claimed 28 lives.
Chief Commissioner of the PNG Accident Investigations Com-mission Nema Yalo said yesterday that the investigation into the accident has come to a stage where findings of the commissions were delivered to persons and stakeholders directly involved in the accident for their comments and feedbacks.
Mr Yalo said the commission would not release any information on the progress of the investigations at this stage according to aviation investigations laws, until it receives responses from directly involved persons.
"The directly involved persons would involve the aircraft manufactures or manufacturers of parts of aircrafts. It also involves immediate families of the victims involved in the accident for their feedback on the findings of the commission," Mr Yalo said.
He said the commission would not be able to provide a definite time as to when the final reports would be ready. "As to when the reports would be ready is a matter of process. It is not like investigating simple traffic accident on the road as there are international Civil Aviation rules that must be followed. It takes a lot of time when relevant parts of the planes are sent out to manufactures for analysis and inspections," Mr Yalo said.
He added that the commission does not have any control of how long investigations would take but only wait for the reports to be sent back to them in order to pursue further.
The commission also called on airline operators to be extra cautious in the Christmas period because there were frequent aviation accidents occurring unlike in the past.