Reading today's wonderful St Helena Independent there is a little more info from SHG about the wind shear problem and to what is happening with the RMS :
ST HELENA AIRPORT - UPDATE ON ACTIONS
St Helena Government announced on Tuesday 26 April 2016
that the Official Opening of St Helena Airport, originally planned
for 21 May 2016, had been postponed whilst further opera-
tional and safety work is undertaken. The Comair Implemen-
tation Flight on 18 April experienced turbulence and wind shear
and further work is now underway to gather additional data
and put in place mitigation measures to ensure the safe op-
eration of passenger flights to and from St Helena Airport.
The safety of aircraft and passengers is, of course, para-
mount.
There have been several successful landings at St Helena
Airport - the Calibration Flights in September and December
2015 and Execujet (Certification) and Comair (Implementa-
tion) in April 2016. Each landing has provided us with infor-
mation that will be used to inform our work.
This work has been progressing rapidly and this press re-
lease outlines what is being done.
Current Actions
· Planning is underway to ensure continued access to
St Helena. As part of this process - and although there are
no current plans to extend RMS operations - this is being
kept under review. We are also examining ways to ensure
medivac flights are enabled
· Specific steps are being taken to address turbulence
and wind shear
· This work will include analysis of all available and new
data, including weather data, plus formal reports from pilots
of all aircraft that have landed at St Helena Airport. Reports
on wind conditions will be maintained and regularly updated
and consideration will be given to installing specialised equip-
ment
· Computer modelling is also being developed to test dif-
ferent scenarios. Calibrating the model against actual condi-
tions experienced at the Airport should aid in predicting turbu-
lence and wind shear in different wind conditions. Some wind
tunnel work may also be carried out
· All of our findings will be carefully documented so that
all potential flights to St Helena (not just Comair flights) have
access to this information and can plan accordingly. Ultimately,
information on landing conditions will be included in the Aero-
drome Information Publication
This data collection, analysis and modelling - and subsequent
work to develop new operating procedures and share this in-
formation - will take some time. It is too early to tell how long
it will take to complete this work, but we are looking at the
timescales that might be involved and working flat out to com-
mence commercial flights at St Helena Airport at the earliest
possible opportunity.
Certification work is not yet quite complete, but will not be
affected by the decision to delay the Official Opening of the
Airport and the work which flows from this.
The public will be kept fully informed as this work progresses.
SHG
3 May 2016