Quite honestly, the EASA ban on "58 Indonesian airlines operating in European airspace", which has been quoted
ad nauseum this week -is utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of the 58 airlines so afflicted. There are 2 immediate reasons for that:
1. The airlines do NOT now and have no intention of ever operating in European airspace -or indeed for most, in any other countries airspace, and
2. The EASA ban is applied automagically to pretty much every Indonesian AOC issued in recent memory, without reference to or from any EASA authority. In other words, the EASA issue is not necessarily anything to do with the airlines named, but rather more of an EASA issue with the way Indonesian DGCA goes about its business. Hence, a blanket "ban". Makes great headlines though, doesn't it?
Take that for whatever it's worth.
Originally Posted by Heathrow Harry
but if you're going up-country to a small strip... especially in Indonesian Papua - you are bush flying with all the attendant risks
Agreed -to a point. I am one of a diverse group of expat pilots flying in that area. There's not one of us that I can point to and say "he
wants to have a crash", as I'm sure you would struggle to do also.
There's a raft-load of issues that we, as expats, struggle with here that are not common in other parts of the world... things like the world's most dense bureaucracy and the daily frustration of dealing with that; corruption at every level of that bureaucracy and indeed the core of just doing business at any level. Then there are the operational matters that tend to be relatively unique to Papua, to us as pilots... I could seriously go on for hours.
My point is, we are generally doing as much as we are able to make operations here as safe as we can. We are hamstrung by an indifferent regulator, tripped-up by corruption (a loader can make a months wages on One flight -if he can sneak an extra 200Kg on board -quite a temptation) and have to be on our very toes, all day every day to guard against things that just wouldn't happen anywhere else in the world.
This Trigana crash could possibly be characterised as an accident looking for a place to happen. Indonesia -and certainly Papua- does NOT have the infrastructure (airways/navaids etc) taken for granted in Europe. Flights are generally on a "magenta line" at a known safe level with descents, especially in the mountains predicated on going visual at a known, safe place. Trigana however had their own "IFR Procedure" at WAJO which took them West of the airport -into rising terrain, no less- where they would start their descent in the base-turn. Seeing my point yet? My guess is he started down either too soon or too quick. I doubt he saw what was coming at all.
Rather than simply tar every Indonesian operator (and by extension, their pilots) as irredemable idiots as seems to be the fashion, perhaps delve a little deeper.
Not one of us is idiot-proof. We all do the very best we can with the resources at our disposal. **** knows, the very next thread could be about me...
God forbid.