Daily Times

Sir: It is good that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has come out with the facts and figures that were concealed earlier in the Air Blue crash of 2010 because, allegedly, influence was being exercised by the CAA director general who was a former air force officer. However, it was on the directions of the Peshawar High Court that the CAA was forced to come out with the truth. The report mentions a number of irregularities like incompetence, qualification and internationally recommended criteria for deployment of air-traffic controllers, especially controllers who are neither trained nor able to handle such situations. At present, the majority of the directors in the CAA are all from the air force whereas regular officers, except performing the duties of acting directors, never get promoted to become full-fledged directors. At present, eight senior most officers of the CAA cadre are performing the duties of acting directors and a junior general manager, who stands at number 55 in seniority, is wearing two hats.

Likewise, the air transport branch is the key branch of the CAA where only professionals are appointed. However, surprisingly, some time ago, the CAA director general appointed an audit and account officer to head the most technical directorate of the air transport. The CAA has been converted into an air force aviation authority, thus shaking its very foundation. There cannot be two opinions about the issue: all deputations must be repatriated back to their parent organisations, including all PAF air traffic controllers. The CAA director general and deputy director general should preferably be appointed from among senior regular officers of the CAA cadre. If one ignores merit, it will result in such crashes. This is not a case in isolation. The CAA has the Bhoja air crash to answer to, which is still under investigation. Let the CAA be run by regular, trained and experienced officers instead of thrusting serving/retired PAF officers on deputation by ignoring CAA officers.

NOOR ARSHAD

Karachi