Two airline crashes in Africa this past fortnight have added to the continent’s dismal air safety record.
On December 25 113 people were killed when a Beirut-bound Boeing 727 clipped a building on the end of the runway at Cotonou, the commercial capital of Benin and ended up in the Atlantic Ocean.
What appears to be a power failure brought down a 10-year-old Boeing 737 shortly after take-off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh, killing 148 people on January 3.
The owners of the charter company, Flash Airlines, said the pilots have at least 5 000 hours of flying time and the two aircraft are regularly serviced in Norway.
It emerges, however, that since October 2002 Flash Airlines has been banned from flying over Swiss airspace due to safety concerns. A Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation spokesperson described the airline as ”a danger to aviation security”.
African airline traffic outstripped the rest of world in showing a 6,4% growth in numbers in 2002. With three new carriers registered last year African airline capacity was up 11,5%. This still gives Africa only 3% of global air traffic. However, according to the Netherlands-based Aviation Safety Network, 17% of fatal airline accidents have occurred in Africa in the past decade.
A South African air safety expert described this as a balance between economics and regulations. ”There are too many operators in parts of the continent and, because of the highly competitive nature of the business, the pressure on these operators is to keep costs down.
”When they spend in one place they have to save on another. There are also operators in for the short haul. In unstable areas they go for maximum profit in the shortest possible time. This happens in areas of low regulatory oversight. Regulation is critical. Too much of it kills business. Too little kills people.”
Southern Africa was also safer than Western and Central Africa.
The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has set a target of halving the number of African air crashes by the year 2010.
Iata director general Giovanni Bisigani told the Association of African Airlines general assembly in Tripoli last month that this would be difficult in the light of worldwide airline economies. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, airlines have lost a total of $35-billion.
Bisigani said African governments had to liberalise their aviation legislation wherever possible and adopt an open skies policy to share resources and expertise.
The IATA has its work cut out to meet the 2010 target, especially when looking at the dismal 15-year history involving African carriers.
A dismal history of crashes
December 1 2003: 33 people killed when a military passenger plane crashes into market stalls at Boende, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
July 8: A Sudanese airliner bound for Khartoum crashes. Only one of 116 people aboard survives.
May 8: About 200 passengers are killed after the rear door of an Ilyushin 76 plane belonging to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry bursts open in mid-flight over the DRC.
March 6: An Air Algerie plane crashes at Tamanrasset airport, killing 102 people.
May 4 2002: An airliner carrying 79 people crashes into residential blocks as it prepares to land at Nigeria’s Kano airport, killing 149 people and injuring 49.
January 31 2000: A Kenya Airlines plane crashes into the sea off Côte d’Ivoire, killing all but 10 of the 179 people on board.
November 23 1996: An Ethiopian Airlines plane is hijacked over the Comoros Islands and crashes into the Indian Ocean, killing 125.
November 7: A Nigerian airliner crashes into a lagoon near the capital Lagos, killing 143 people.
January 8: In former Zaire, a cargo plane crashes into a Kinshasa market, killing more than 300 people.
December 18 1995: A Zairean airliner crashes in Angola, killing 141 people.
July 1 1994: 94 people killed when a passenger plane crashes on landing in Tidjikja, Mauritania.
December 22 1992: A Libyan Arab Airlines plane crashes near Tripoli, killing 157 people.
September 26: A Nigerian military transport aircraft crashes near Lagos, killing at least 158 people.
September 19 1989: A DC-10 airliner, belonging to French airline UTA, is blown up over Niger, killing 170 people, in an attack blamed on Libyan secret services.
November 28 1987: A South African airliner crashes off the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, killing 160 people.