A Boeing 767 passenger jet rests at the end of the runway after making
an emergency landing at Arusha Airport, which is designed to handle only
light aircraft. PHOTO | JOSEPH LYIMO
By Frank Kimboy,The Citizen Reporter
In Summary
- Ethiopian Airlines says in an email that air traffic controllers at KIA failed to guide the pilot to the airport
Dar es Salaam. Ethiopia
Airlines has agreed with the preliminary report by Tanzania Air Accident
Investigation Branch (Taib) about wrong airport landing incident at
Arusha, involving its Boeing 767 last month.
However, the airline dismissed suggestions that
the accident was caused by a pilot error and insisted that the break of
communication between Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) and the
plane crew was the main reason behind the incident, as the report itself
said.
According to Ethiopia Airlines’ Public Relations
and Publication officer Biniyam Demssie, KIA controller failed to guide
the pilot properly.
“Kilimanjaro controller failed to ask the pilot
about his mandatory point and guide him properly in this unusual landing
circumstance. And this was highlighted by the report,” Mr Demssie told The Citizen
via email. Taib released a report a fortnight ago saying the pilot
wrongly landed at Arusha Airport even after he confirmed to the KIA
control tower that he had seen the KIA airport. The two airports are
seven flight minutes apart.
But the report also said the controller at KIA was
supposed to crosscheck with the pilot because the landing involved a
runway that had no automatic landing controlling instruments. The runway
that had such instrument was temporarily closed after an incident in
which an aircraft had crash-landed following defaults on its landing
gear.
“The Taib report specifically states that ‘…the
pilot failed to report at the mandatory reporting point, LOSIN. He was
also not asked by the Kilimanjaro approach to do so… His downwind
position report was not challenged by the Kilimanjaro controller, who
should have had him in sight in that position...’ We totally agree with
this observation,” Mr Demssie.
On December 18 the jet. en route to Mombasa from
Addis Ababa via KIA, landed at the Arusha Airport. The Boeing 767 made a
safe landing on the runway, which is only 1,631 metres long. The
aircraft came to a stop on a soil patch as the pilot attempted to
prevent the giant aircraft from overshooting the runway
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