The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has disclosed to Citi Business News it will slap sanctions on local airline Starbow if it emerges that it was liable for Saturday’s incident.
The latest follows the soon to commence review of the operations of Starbow Airlines.
The exercise will also include the management structure and skills set of staff of the airline company to promote safety in the aviation sector.
The announcement comes days after a Starbow aircraft skidded off the runway as it prepared to take-off at the Kotoka International Airport.
The Director General of the GCAA, Simon Allotey explains that possible sanctions will be applied where necessary to deepen conformity in the aviation industry.
“We are as part of the investigations, going to have a review of Starbow as an organization not just their maintenance but a total review of their management, their structure their training, qualifications and all that to be sure as part of a broader safety management system everything is being done right,” he told Citi Business News.
Mr. Allotey added, “We will ask them to effect the necessary corrections and that is better there are situations where you impose sanctions where there are serious infractions but where it just needs a corrective action, we resolve the safety concern through asking the company to do a corrective action plan, give them a timeline to implement it and we review and approve.”
Five injured in accident
Five passengers sustained minor injuries when a Kumasi bound Starbow aircraft skidded off the runway when it taxied to take off on Saturday, November 25, 2017.
The aviation authorities have indicated of investigations into the matter to ascertain the actual cause of the accident.
The investigations are expected to last for at least a year considering the magnitude of exercise to be undertaken.
But the DG of the GCAA, believes there is little possibility for the accident to have been caused by inexperience of the crew.
“But this is an unfortunate occurrence and it cannot be attributed to the lack of experience on the part of the crew or weather conditions because it was quite wet at the time.”
Passengers stranded over demo flight
The day before, Friday November 24, 2017, some passengers were stranded at the KIA after Starbow cancelled their flight without an immediate alternative.
The motive was to allow a demo flight as the aircraft in question had just been welcomed by the company into Ghana as part of its fleet.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
