Drop noted in private aircraft crashes

THERE has been a marked decline in the number of private aircraft accidents over the past three years‚ but more still needs to be done‚ director of civil aviation Poppy Khoza said yesterday.

Briefing the media on the work of the South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)‚ Khoza said these accidents happened in the general aviation area.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with commercial scheduled operations‚ the normal airlines as we know them.

“We have a problem that seems to be slowly diminishing in that when we compare accidents in the past three years, [there is] a decline‚” she said.

Khoza said there had been a 50% reduction in aircraft accidents when comparing the statistics of four years ago and those of the 2016-17 financial year.

“We saw 144 accidents four years ago. At the end of 2016-17‚ we had 72 accidents‚ a 50% reduction.”

She said the CAA would want to see the number improving to a point where there were no accidents.

“If it is doable in the scheduled commercial operations‚ I would like to believe it can be doable in the private flying operations.”

Khoza said in the 2017-18 financial year‚ the CAA was concerned that there had been more accidents than in the 2016-17 year.

“In the 2016-17 financial year‚ we had 72 accidents. We are now sitting at 75.” – TimesLIVE