Stabroek Business has been informed by an aviation industry source that Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and Transport Minister Robeson Benn were passengers on the Air Services Ltd. (ASL) Cessna 208 aircraft just days before the aircraft was grounded by the Minister for what the Transport Minister told a press conference last week were breaches of aviation regulations. The source told Stabroek Business that the infringement for which ASL was cited was “a newly introduced bureaucratic procedure to which no other aircraft operating in Guyana has ever been subjected.” The source told Stabroek Business that the grounded aircraft had already been cleared by the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority to fly prior to the recent grounding order, and there was no question as to the aircrafts’ fitness to fly.
Meanwhile in what is becoming an increasingly heated controversy between the state aviation authorities and the privately-run aviation sector over regulation and inspection issues, Managing Director of Roraima Airways Inc. Captain Gerry Gouveia earlier this week weighed in on the side of the privately-run aviation sector, rejecting what he said were remarks made by the Transport Minister which he said characterizes the aviation sector as “a bunch of renegade operators.”
“The Minister’s remarks are unfortunate and unacceptable,” Gouveia told Stabroek Business.
Gouveia, a veteran pilot with training in aviation safety, accident investigation and aviation security procedures at the United States National Transport Safety Board Academy (NTSB) in Washington DC, and the George Washington Univer-sity in Virginia told Stabroek Business that he was concerned that the Minister’s statement was not only “unnecessary” but also that it represented “an inappropriate departure from the culture of private/public sector partnership that has characterized the aviation industry. He said that what also concerned him was that the Minister’s remarks may have created the impression both within and outside of Guyana that the local aviation industry was unsafe. “In the light of these recent developments it is important that we provide unambiguous assurances, both locally and internationally, that our aviation sector is professionally run and that it conforms to the highest possible standards of safety,” Gouveia said.
And Gouveia told Stabroek Business that he was upset over comments made by the Transport Minister and directed at ASL over the grounding of the Cessna aircraft. “Air Services is one of the oldest aviation services in the country and Yacoob Ally (the founder of ASL) has been a pioneer in the industry. This is a company that has been investing and reinvesting millions and millions of dollars back in Guyana in circumstances where many other business people have been making money and moving their money overseas,” Gouveia said.
Last Wednesday Benn said that the GCAA had grounded an ASL Cessna 208 aircraft for being uncertified. But Gouveia said that while on the surface the issue was made to appear as though ASL was a rogue operator, nothing could be further from the truth.
According to Gouveia it was the AOAG that had led the way in insisting on both high standards of safety in the industry through a number of initiatives including subjecting the aviation industry to inspection by RASOS, the regional air safety organization.
Gouveia told Stabroek Business that while he believed that the local aviation sector provided “the highest possible standard” of aviation safety, adding that standards had to be viewed in the context of the local aviation safety infrastructure which, he said, was the responsibility of the government. Poorly maintained airstrips, the absence of navigational aids and the absence of a reliable rapid response state-run search and rescue support system are among the deficiencies in the aviation sector identified by Gouveia, and according to the Roraima CEO the aviation industry had continued to place its resources, including its human resources “on the line” in order to sustain a reliable air service to remote regions of the country in support of the various services including the security services.
“The AOAG has had to set up its own search and rescue support system because we could not rely on the national search and rescue support system,” Gouveia said. He added that the AOAG also continued to work in partnership with government by making available pilots, aircraft and airstrips to serve the country’s air transport industry, “What we also do is to fly in the jungle at night without navigational aids doing numerous medical evacuation missions to save lives,” Gouveia added.
The current air safety spat centres around concerns expressed by the AOAG that the GCAA is attempting to use a junior pilot as a Flight Operations Inspector. In this interview with Stabroek Business Gouveia reiterated the concerns expressed by the AOAG regarding the Flight Operations Inspector, which concerns, he said had to do with both seniority and technical expertise” “It is simply an issue of the unsuitability of the individual to hold such a senior and highly technical position since he lacks both the relevant qualifications and experience, Gouveia said. Noting that the issue was not one on which the industry could afford to compromise since even the Civil Aviation Authority had conceded that its Flight Operations Inspector was not adequately qualified. “We are not saying that we want to fly without regulation. What we are saying is that we want to be regulated by competent systems and individuals and that the Flight Operations Inspector must be someone who enjoys the confidence and respect of the industry,” Gouveia added.
This newspaper understands that part of the criteria for holding the position of Flight Operations Inspector is that the appointee must have served in a senior management position in an airline for at least five (5) years.
While Stabroek Business understands that the GCAA is seeking to send its Flight Operations Inspector abroad for further training, Gouveia said that this would not solve the problem since the individual did not have the experience as senior management in an airline as was required in the first place.Gouveia said that while it may be possible that there may be some persons in Guyana qualified to serve as Flight Operations Inspector, it was likely that these persons may be working with the private sector. He said that he was aware that the GCAO’s last Flight Inspector, Captain Egbert Fields, whom he said was “decidedly qualified both in terms of qualifications and experience” and who had the total respect and confidence of the industry, had left the job “in frustration.” Asked about the status of aviation safety inspections in Guyana in the light of the questions that have been raised about the incumbent Flight Inspector Gouveia told Stabroek Business that the industry has been urging the GCAA to continue to bring in RASOS inspectors from Jamaica to do the job properly. “This is the aviation sector and is highly technical and complex and therefore needs highly technical, experienced, competent and qualified individuals to provide oversight, we therefore have to pursue and lobby those options that we can rely upon,” he added,
Gouveia said that contrary to the impression which the Minister’s comments sought to create, it was the aviation sector that had continued to lobby for higher standards over the years. “In fact it was the AOAG that advocated that RASOS the regional oversight body be engaged to conduct these inspections,” he added.
“What concerns me is that the aviation sector has been working in good faith to establish a regime of public/private sector cooperation. Long before the present Minister assumed office aircraft owners have been meeting on a regular basis with his predecessors in order to create a framework for meeting the various challenges in the sector. While we have no wish to further accentuate the present differences it has to be said that the remarks by the Minister of Transport is a sharp d
eparture from that tradition,” Gouveia said. Meanwhile, and following publication of an official GCAA report Gouveia said that it did not appear to him as though the Minister had been able to differentiate among “accidents, incidents and crashes” in the context of the aviation sector.
