Aviation sector riddled with deficiencies – stakeholder

…decries lack of search &rescue, weather reports, navigational aids

The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has implemented a temporary ban on some interior shuttle flights while it tries to come to grips with rising aircraft accidents, but a notable stakeholder in the aviation sector has some insider information on the problems in the sector, and has offered this publication a slew

of his own recommendations on how to treat with the rising accidents.
Captain Gerry Gouveia, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Roraima Airways, in a letter to Director General of the GCAA, Egbert Fields, said some of the structural and operational deficiencies being faced by pilots daily include the lack of accurate, relevant weather reports and the paucity of search-and-rescue operations.
In the letter, a copy of which was seen by this newspaper, Gouveia also decried the absence of air traffic control to help aircraft avoid mid-air collisions beyond a

75-mile radius of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA).
Gouveia related that the recent accidents to have hit the aviation sector can be categorised as accidents during the landing phase, the take-off phase, and the descent phase. He noted that these accidents garnered concern from the general public, the Government, stakeholders, and the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).
It is the GCAA’s response to the accidents — which has caused the ban on shuttle flights — that Gouveia has issues with, and he has accordingly criticised.
“I have been on public record as saying that the suspension order for shuttle operations was a knee-jerk reaction to what I believe is a much more substantial series of issues that need a more comprehensive and detailed review and actions to fix,” he related.
“The people in the hinterland will be facing undue and unnecessary hardships while waiting for manuals to be written to outline what is generally already being done on a daily basis by pilots as they shuttle food and supplies to remote areas on the mountains”, he detailed.

Current Situation
Pointing to the low percentage of overall accidents and deaths on a yearly basis, he noted that the aviation sector is currently at a high safety level.
He also lauded the system of compliance checks employed by the GCAA, local maintenance organisations, and the number of well-trained pilots.
However, the aviation specialist went on to detail the challenges and institutional deficiencies which those in the industry face on a regular basis.
He described these operational and safety challenges as contributory factors to the current problems in the industry.
“Due to the lack, and at times inadequate, institutional state systems to support a growing aviation sector, suitably qualified pilots flying perfectly safe planes must often rely on local knowledge through years of flying experience and extraordinary human skills to complete flights daily into our hinterland,” Gouveia revealed.
“This reality exposes the pilots to the (dangers) that exist in the local aviation landscape, which is plagued by high mountains, high trees, and short runways with poor surface conditions,” he related. “(There is a) lack of security and management systems on hinterland runways; poor runway surface conditions; lack of search-and-rescue, inadequate lessons from past accident investigations, and non-existent navigational aids outside the 75 miles radius.”
He said that flights are usually dispatched with insufficient or inadequate data of the en-route weather and the expected winds. More specifically, he noted, they do not have the details of weather systems at the destination and forecast weather at the alternate runways.

Pilots
Turning his attention to the pilots themselves, Gouveia related that they have been making daily reports of highly unusual and unexpected weather conditions. He noted that pilots fly unassisted through vast airspace beyond the 75-mile radius of CJIA depend primarily on their own radio contact with other planes in order to avoid mid-air collisions.
Gouveia was critical of the lack of an established national search-and-rescue system and, more particularly, the lack of an adequately equipped helicopter which would impact their capacity to carry out these operations.

 Recommendations
He made a number of recommendations. These include that the GCAA mandate the use of high-end moving map Global Positioning System (GPS) in every plane, and that pilots be equipped with a secondary back-up GPS.
“Establish flight corridors for every route into the hinterland runways using agreed-on GPS waypoints. Establish procedures using GPS waypoints to assist pilots in maintaining stabilized flight and stabilized approaches to all runways,” Gouveia continued.
He also advocated that aircraft be equipped with the Automatic Dependent Broadcast Surveillance (ADBS) tracking systems. He urged that the ADSB systems be fast-tracked to completion, and be always operational and functioning.
Gouveia recommended that spot trackers be installed on every aircraft operating in Guyana; and that each local airline must have the ability to track and flight follow their aircraft moment by moment.
“Ensure that air traffic control services are deployed at specific geographic locations beyond the 75-mile radius of CJIA, such as at Kaieteur Falls, Port Kaituma and Lethem, to mitigate against mid-air collisions and thereby improve aviation safety in this rapidly expanding sector”, he recommended.
Gouveia said the authorities should, without delay, move to boost Guyana’s national rescue capability by acquiring an appropriate/suitable helicopter to execute timely and safe extractions from the jungle if the need arises.
Gouveia’s recommendations come after the recent occurrence of several fatal and non-fatal accidents. On July 25, Captain Collin Martin, a retired Guyana Defence Force Major, was piloting a Roraima Airways aircraft when it crashed, killing him almost instantly. Martin perished after the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft he was operating crashed on landing at Eteringbang.
Captain Imran Khan, 41, of Essequibo Coast, Region Two, lost his life when the Cessna 206 aircraft which he was flying from Chi-Chi to Mahdia went down late last month. He had been attached to Air Services Limited.