IATA urges measure to improve African aviation safety

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urge ministers attending the African Ministerial Meeting on Aviation Safety to endorse and adopt the Africa Strategic Improvement Action Plan. Alongside colleagues from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), IATA agued the plan would enhance safety by addressing deficiencies and strengthening regulatory oversight in the region progressively to 2015. The Africa Strategic Improvement Action Plan calls for the:     Establishment of independent and sufficiently funded civil aviation authorities.     Implementation of effective and transparent safety oversight systems by all African States.     Completion of an IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) by all African carriers.     Implementation of accident prevention measures focused on runway safety and loss of control.     Implementation of Flight Data Analysis (FDA).     Implementation of Safety Management Systems (SMS) by all service providers. IATA, ICAO and leading aviation stakeholders and regulatory organizations committed to this plan following the Africa Safety Summit held in Johannesburg in May 2012. The key areas were developed based on an analysis of air transport accidents in Africa between 2006-2010 conducted by IATA and ICAO. This analysis identified that the main contributing factors to accidents were insufficient regulatory oversight and the lack of SMS implementation. Implementation of tools such as FDA 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. This plan must also include the urgent resolution of all identified Significant Safety Concerns (SSCs) and the certification of all international airports. “For ICAO, sates with significant safety concerns are a priority, and I cannot stress enough that they should be the priority of all stakeholders,” emphasised ICAO Council president Roberto Kobeh González. The funding of the proposed action plan will be shared according to the functions and responsibilities of the entities involved in each initiative.