While delays in establishing an independent Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation Division AIID have raised concerns, aviation experts believe it is unlikely to result in a ban on South African carriers operating internationally or on international carriers flying into South Africa in the foreseeable future.
Last week, Business Day reported that South Africa ran the risk of being denied access to US and EU airspace because the South African Civil Aviation Authority SACAA had not yet separated AIID from its administrative structure. This is in contravention of ICAO Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention, which requires aircraft accident investigations to be conducted independently and impartially.
However, Guy Leitch , Editor of SA Flyer magazine, told 702 s John Perlman , that the AIID's alleged lack of independence did not breach hard law but rather an ICAO-recommended standard. Leitch emphasised that ICAO was likely to continue to offer SACAA the opportunity to meet this standard.
The issue has come to the fore following the release of the Department of Transports Civil Aviation Policy and Legislation: Draft Comprehensive Civil Aviation Policy May 23. It states that ICAO audits in 2007 and 2017 found that the AIID's functional independence was compromised by its administrative ties to SACAA, potentially creating conflicts of interest and risking South African airlines access to US and EU airspace.
Conflict of interestIn any accident or incident investigation, one of the first essential things that an investigation will look at is act of omissions by the safety regulator in terms of licences issued to aircraft, crew, engineers, and maintenance facilities whether the regulator was conducting regular inspections and if there were any anomalies, explained Linden Birns , MD of Plane Talking.