DAVID LEARMOUNT / BUDAPEST
A new air accident investigation board has been created to meet JAA requirements
Still struggling to raise the quality of its "inadequate" airline safety oversight organisation, Greece has made a significant step forward by establishing an autonomous air accident investigation board, according to the European Joint Aviation Authorities.
The JAA and the US Federal Aviation Administration are not satisfied that the Greek civil aviation authority (CAA) inspection system meets International Civil Aviation Organisation standards, and Greece is keen to rectify this before the 2004 Olympic Games pushes up air traffic to the country, head of the new Aviation Safety and Air Accident Investigation Board (ASAAIB) Akrivos Tsolakis says.
Before the ASAAIB was set up, the CAA was responsible for the administration, standards and oversight of airports and air traffic control (ATC), and also accident investigation. Tsolakis points out that this left the CAA open to criticism during accident investigations that it protected the airports and ATC from any blame or criticism that might be due. In any case, JAA standards now require that accident investigation organisations are made autonomous from government oversight or airport and ATC operating agencies.
In response, the Greek government has completed the lawmaking process to create the ASAAIB, and has approved the committee of experts who make up the board with Tsolakis, head of the Flight Safety Foundation chapter in south-eastern Europe and a former Olympic Airways training captain, as its chairman.
Greece's CAA has not yet raised its standards sufficiently for the FAA to remove its Category II status under the US International Aviation Safety Assessment programme. Tsolakis says that the clearest problem is the authority's shortage of fully trained safety inspectors, and this cannot be rectified quickly because training takes time. But it is definitely possible for Greece to earn JAA and FAA approval in time for the Olympic Games travel rush, Tsolakis believes.
Source: Flight International
