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Indonesia takes air safety standards back five years

Steve Creedy, Aviation writer | December 03, 2007

AIR safety has taken a significant backwards step, with crashes in Indonesia helping push this year's global aviation accident rate back to 2002 levels.
The disappointing slip came after a decade-long campaign by international airlines to halve the accident rate produced the safest 12 months on record last year.
A reminder of Indonesia's troubled air system came at the weekend when one of the country's busiest airports, at Medan, was closed indefinitely after a fire razed the domestic passenger terminal.
Preliminary results for this calendar year from the International Air Transport Association show an accident rate of 0.9 aircraft losses for every million flights, up from 0.65 for 2006.
Crashes in Indonesia, including the fatal accident at Yogyakarta that killed five Australians in March, pushed the Asia-Pacific rate up to a sobering 3.27 losses for every million flights.
The increase in the accident rate comes at a time the aviation industry is growing at 5-6 per cent a year and means the absolute number of crashes will rise accordingly.
It also undermines a push by the International Air Transport Association to cut the accident rate by a further 25 per cent by the end of next year.
IATA director-general Giovanni Bisignani described the result as "a big step backwards". He said some areas were doing well and there had been no accidents in the Middle East or North Africa.
IATA's work with Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States had also helped to turn the worst safety record of last year into a clean slate so far.
Europe and North America also reported improvements, while North Asia suffered one total aircraft loss but still had an accident rate below the global average. The international airline group blamed three areas for the increase: the Asia-Pacific, Brazil and Africa.
Mr Bisignani said tragic accidents pushed up the Latin American total aircraft loss rate to 2.52, while the Indonesian crashes increased the Asia-Pacific rate to 3.27. In Africa, a more dispersed and unrelated set of accidents increased the rate from an already bad rate of 4.31 to 6.04.
"We are a global industry and flying must be safe everywhere," Mr Bisginani said. IATA had established partnerships with Indonesia and Brazil to improve the situation with practical measures and was working in Africa.
The IATA prediction comes after the European Union recently voted to maintain its ban on Indonesian airlines because Australia's northern neighbour had failed to make enough progress in improving its troubled aviation system.
All Indonesian carriers, including flag carrier Garuda, were banned earlier this year from landing at EU airports.
The director of aviation safety and environment for the EU, Roberto Salvarani, said during a recent visit to Australia Indonesia had made some progress but this was marginal compared with the restructuring needed.

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The only one that needs to be replaced from the management pilots office is 'Chief Pilot' (wannabe) 'Captain' KW who sits on the recruiting officers chair!

Heard she has 1000 hours S/E but treats pilots from HKA as dirt!

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