How safe is Uganda's airspace?

With nine plane accidents occurring in Uganda in nine years, our airspace might be one of the most unsafe in the world! Just consider the following statistics:

1) March 8, 2009 – A Somalia-bound Illyushin 76 plane operated by Aerolift crashes and sinks into Lake Victoria soon after taking-off at Entebbe International Airport, killing all 11 people on board;
2) February 20, 2009 – An Antonov 12 cargo aircraft also operated by Aerolift from Entebbe International Airport to Ukraine crashes at Luxor while attempting to take off after a refuelling stopover. All the aircraft’s five-member crew are killed upon impact;
3) April 21, 2008 – A Kenya Airways plane overshoots the runway at Entebbe airport but the aircraft and passengers are all safe;
4) September 25, 2007 – A twin-engine, eight-seater French-made aircraft belonging to Furgo Airborne Surveys crashes soon after take-off at Entebbe International Airport, killing two people;
5) June 16, 2006 – A Uganda People's Defence Forces aircraft crashes and sinks into Lake Victoria during a military exercise;
6) April 30, 2006 – A South African chartered plane goes missing in the DR Congo and is found crashed on the mountains bordering Uganda;
7) March 19, 2005 – A Boeing 707 cargo plane headed for Togo from Ethiopia with 3.2 tonnes of cargo plunges into Lake Victoria as it lands to refuel at Entebbe International Airport;
8) January 8, 2005 – A DR Congo-registered cargo plane belonging to Service Air Company crashes near Entebbe International Airport, killing its six-member Russian crew;
9) April 30, 2000 – A DAS Air Cargo DC-10 aircraft from London with over 50 tonnes of cargo crashes into Lake Victoria as it lands at Entebbe International Airport. All crew members miraculously survive;

Entebbe International Airport has been reported as having some of the best air space management radar systems (further revamped ahead of CHOGM). This not withstanding, more plane crashes and accidents have occurred in Uganda compared with other international airports anywhere else in the Africa.

It seems Uganda Civil Aviation Authority CAA takes the blame for most of the mishaps given that it has glaringly failed to exercise its air control functions. At the moment, CAA is one of the airport regulatory authorities in the world which still allow obsolete, poorly serviced, soviet-era planes not only to use our air space, but also land and take off at our International Airport. While you will not hear of an Illyushin or Antonov, or any carrier without a sound service record landing or taking off any where else where a reputable airports regulatory body is in charge, Uganda remains the safe haven for aircrafts which will soon have no where else to land.

True, Uganda CAA has for some time now enforced ICAO rules on registration of old planes and continues to refuse to register any of them in Uganda. However, it has utterly failed to ban such aircraft from actually flying in and out of Uganda as long those ramshackled planes are on the registry of other countries. Powerful businessmen such as Sam Engola (the owner of Aerolift) whose planes have been involved in the most recent air accidents) take advantage of CAA impotence to get their obsolete planes registered in countries such as the DR Congo, and then freely maraud in our airspaces.

To the shrewd businessmen, Antonovs, Iljushins and other out-dated, poorly serviced planes provide a silver-lining because of their cheapness. However, their accident record across the African continent makes a horrific reading. It is therefore high time Uganda CAA enforced a complete ban on such aircraft operating in Uganda’s airspace to save not only the lives of innocent passengers and but also restore the its own credibility, and that of the Government of Uganda.

I hate to see the Hon. Minister of Transport and Communications wanting to be seen doing his job by appointing meaningless committees to “investigate the cause of crash” instead of ensuring CAA does what it’s supposed to do!

Uganda already has too much carnage on the road, air carnage would be a sour icing on an already sour cake!

Published on: http://newvision.co.ug/D/8/21/674236