"One of our concerns is the tremendous lack of funds", said Miguel Silveira.
By Lusa | 16: 19
The association of Portuguese pilots argued Tuesday that the lack of Prevention Office media and with Aircraft Accident Investigation undermines the sovereignty of the Portuguese State, considering "shameful" have to resort to counterparts in other countries.
"One of our concerns is the tremendous lack Prevention Office's funding and Accident Investigation Aircraft [GPIAA], which has carried over from the previous executive," he told Lusa the president of the direction of the Association of Portuguese Pilots Airline (APPLA ) Miguel Silveira.
Speaking to Lusa, the spokesman for the pilots emphasized that "it is a matter of sovereignty of the Portuguese State, because if an accident happens with a more serious aircraft, the GPIAA not afford to do research," stressing that "much more important than investigation of accidents and incidents, it is prevention. "
Miguel Silveira considered "shameful" have to resort to the cabinet counterpart in England, to move a technician to Portugal to investigate Saturday's incident when an ATR aircraft TAP Express landed at Lisbon Airport.
"This is shameful. It is the Portuguese state to resign their functions, which can have tremendous influence on the air transport airline for our country, if they see that we have a bad assistance in case of an accident," he said .
As Lusa reported today, after an initial assessment the front axle of the plane that broke apart during the landing, the investigation of GPIAA continue with the assessment to the main train structure (if it was damaged, the incident is regarded as an accident) and the two black boxes of the aircraft.
In the first case, the director Álvaro Neves asked the English counterpart (with which the GPIAA has a cooperation agreement) that provides a specialized technical structures to do this analysis and in the second, asked collaboration to French counterpart that has the necessary equipment for reading the black boxes, which allow to have more information about the time of landing.
The "financial strangulation" of GPIAA, which in 2016 saw the annual budget reduced to 300,000 euros (previously 500 thousand euros) requires "to ask permission for everything," said the director of the public body.
"I do not have autonomy to dispatch material or move an investigator the next day [to an incident] is not acceptable," he considered Álvaro Neves, who is three years ahead of the body that investigates accidents and incidents with aircraft.