Plane crash: Fresh AirBlue probe on cards
A memorandum of understanding will be signed in the next ten days between the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to commence a new investigation into the AirBlue crash that killed 146 passengers in July 2010, a reliable source in the CAA headquarters told The Express Tribune.
The Peshawar High Court ordered the government in January to constitute a new board to investigate the crash under domestic and international laws. The federal government has complied with the orders and the ICAO has agreed to come to the country to begin the investigation despite having just done an audit of the CAA in 2011.
The team of international experts will work together with a team of local civil aviation experts to conduct an audit of the CAA’s safety and security standards.
ICAO audits include a pre-audit, on-site, and post-audit phase. During this the CAA will be comprehensively screened on security and safety of planes, airworthiness, equipment use and every other element that goes into running the CAA.
The last safety audit that was taken in 2011 by the ICAO ranked the CAA at an impressive number ten out of a hundred countries with an eighty-nine percent rating. It is likely that the CAA’s rating will not fall after the following audit, the source said.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 18th, 2012.
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Inspite of orders by Peshawar High Court, the DG CAA continues to sit in his office. Credible investigations into any air accident including Air Blue owned by Tariq Chaudhry a US national cannot be conducted unless there is an independent investigattion unit free from administrative control of CAA, or Ministry of Defence, since both of them are involved in approving grant of AOC to Air Blue, managing Chaklala Airport and posting or recruitment of officers deputed in the existing CAA Air Accident Investigation unit.