04:40 GMT 21st December 2011
The use of old and poorly maintained aircraft is said to be widespread in DRC, with the aircraft certification process even more questionable. The DRC's accident investigation commission reported that the 727 was 46 years old and began operations in the DRC in 2004 under the Swaziland registration of 3D-BOC. Swaziland then revoked the registration in 2005 and a year later the aircraft took on the S9-DBM Sao Tome and Principe registration. But according to the investigators, the registration certificate is not on file and was never seen or found by any of the parties involved.
In 2010 S9-DBM was cancelled, and again, no authentic documents were produced to the investigation commission. Finally, the 727 took its DRC registration of 9Q-COP just prior to its crash having clocked 52,613 flight hours. The aircraft was first delivered new to Lufthansa in 1965.
A recent report by the African Development Bank on the aviation sector in the DRC revealed that there was no effective and sustainable system of air safety supervision relating to crew licence, operation and aircraft airworthiness.
The DRC's ministry of transport has since suspended Hewa Bora's air operations certificate. Air accident investigations are generally conducted with international standards and recommended practices described by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The objective is to determine the cause of the accident in order to prevent future occurrences and not necessarily to apportion blame or liability.
Things operate quite differently in the DRC. Within hours ofthe crash the fingerpointing and breach of international procedures had began. Just five days after the crash, Hewa Bora's CEO Stavros Papaioannou held a press conference and said that the responsibility for the crash rested with the RVA (Congolese Air Transportation Board), which is responsible for managing airports and air navigation safety. Papaioannou said on the day of the accident the RVAhad assigned trainees to the control tower rather than qualified professionals.
Responding to Hewa Bora's accusations, the managing director of the RVA, Justin Okana N'Fiawi, told the local media that no trainee had access to the airport services involved, much less to the control tower on the date of the accident. The interim minister of transport, Martin Kabwelulu, then jumped in to say that the aircraft was overloaded, although according to the passenger manifest it was not. He further said that the RVA's staff had effectively miscalculated the correct approach path.
Independent sources at the time spoke about the disappearance oftape recordings of conversations between the pilots and the air traffic controllers.
When the official preliminary report was eventually released, it highlighted several issues - starting with the cockpit. The captain was found to be properly licensed for the aircraft type, as were the first officer and the flight engineer.
The investigators then turned their attention to the control tower, where the six controllers on duty on the day of the accident were all properly qualified but not licensed. Two of the controllers were above retirement age. The report indicates that the control team may have contributed to the incident by providing erroneous weather data.
Data from the black boxes is still not available at the time of this writing, and the US National Transportation Safety Board has referred all enquiries on the accident to the preliminary report and the Congolese aviation authorities.
Hewa Bora has been in the spotlight before. In June 2010 an MD-82 (9Q-COQ) sustained damage in an emergency landing at Kinshasa-N'Djili Airport after a tyre burst on take-off. The crew declared an emergency and returned to Kinshasa. Perhaps not surprisingly, the airline blamed the state of the runway for the incident, but the investigation found no fault with it.
Little investment in air transport infrastructure in DRC has been made since independence from Belgium. The African Development Bank report shows that air navigation equipment is generally outdated or non-existent, while the DRC's airspace does not provide adequate visual or surveillance systems, particularly for traffic between Southern Africa and Europe and between Southern Africa, West and East Africa. This has led to some traffic bypassing the country's airspace, which has resulted in the loss of aeronautic revenue which would normally have been reinvested in the sector.
In the three main airports at Kinshasa, Kisangani, and Lubumbashi, electricity supply is unreliable, dangerously disrupting lighting services, especially for night flights. A study conducted by the RVA in March admits that 'the electricity supply is not stable, and the systems for refilling fire trucks with water and fire-fighting foam as well as the access routes to the runways in case of a fire fall badly short in most airports, where the aircraft parking areas neither have the required dimensions nor are they set up according to the rules'.
Another major weakness is the lack of an appropriate legal and regulatory framework to enable the civil aviation authority to perform safety and security oversight functions. This is coupled with a shortage and inability to recruit, train and retain suitably qualified inspectors.
The African Airlines Association ( AFRAA) is concerned about the wider implications of the DRC's safety lapses. 'The DRC needs to appreciate that the poor safety record in the country taints the safety record of the entire continent,' said AFRAA secretary general Elijah Chingosho. 'What may be viewed as a local safety problem has implications for higher aircraft insurance premiums for all African operators,' he added.
Various regulators such the ICAO and International Air Transport Association have issued several technical assistance programmes to improve safety oversight capacity for countries that have difficulties in implementing their safety oversight responsibilities, and also to tackle the critical issue of inadequate skilled manpower. The ICAO has set up its comprehensive regional implementation plan for Africa (AFI Plan) to improve aviation safety.
'Where assistance is needed, organisations such as the ICAO, lATA and AFRAA are ready to provide support as long as the government is cmrunitted and ready to accept its safety oversight responsibilities,' said Chingosho. He further added that if the DRC and Sudan adopted ICAO stipulated safety standards, the accident rates in Africa would be reduced to world average levels.
In 2009 the RVA prepared a comprehensive programme to rehabilitate and develop airport infrastructure and air navigation equipment between 2010 and 2015. Projects within the framework included a new terminal at Kinshasa N'djili and the rehabilitation of the runway at a projected cost of $54m. Since the departure of Hewa Bora Airways, Kinshasa-based Compagnie Africaine d' Aviation (CAA Airlines) has taken over as the country's largest carrier with a fleet of Airbus A320-200s, Fokker 50 and F okker I OOs. The airline states that it prides itself as being the only Congolese airline never to have suffered a fatality. Despite the exemplary record, the carrier has suffered two runway incidents (including a 727 write-off) in 2009 and 2010.
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