THE International Air Transport Association (IATA), the clearing house for global airlines and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have urged African aviation ministers to endorse and adopt the Strategic Improvement Action Plan.
The plan they said will enhance safety by addressing deficiencies and strengthening regulatory oversight in the region.
The Africa Strategic Improvement Action Plan recommended the establishment of independent and sufficiently funded civil aviation authorities, implementation of effective and transparent safety oversight systems by all African States and the completion of an IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) by all African carriers.
Others are implementation of accident prevention measures focused on runway safety, loss of control, Implementation of Flight Data Analysis (FDA) and the implementation of Safety Management Systems (SMS) by all service providers.
IATA, ICAO, leading aviation stakeholders and regulatory organizations have all adopted this plan at the Africa Safety Summit held in Johannesburg in May 2012.
Flight School
The key areas of the plan were developed based on an analysis of air transport accidents in Africa between 2006-2010 conducted by IATA and ICAO.
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This analysis identified the main contributing factors to accidents as insufficient regulatory oversight and the lack of SMS implementation.
Implementation of tools such as FDA, they stated, could have pinpointed precursors to the major accident types, namely runway excursions, controlled flight into terrain and loss of control.
Runway excursions alone accounted for about a quarter of African accidents, according to the analysis. This plan, they noted, must include the urgent resolution of all identified Significant Safety Concerns (SSCs) and the certification of all international airports.
“For ICAO, States with significant safety concerns are a priority, and I cannot stress enough that they should be the priority of all stakeholders,” Roberto Kobeh González, ICAO Council President said.
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