V-Bird wrote:When an a300 gets good maintance and the crew is well trained, its an good and safe aircraft!
Not so long ago, I was seeing the clouds coming(1), and I referred to
SAFA drawing the attention of the willing members to the problem. (long before shit happened...)
Safa stands for
Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft Programme
I make a quick overview:
International civil aviation is governed by the Convention on International Civil Aviation (commonly known as the Chicago Convention).
Under this Convention, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a specialised agency of the United Nations, sets the minimum(2) Standards and Recommended Practices for international civil aviation.
These standards are contained in 18 Annexes to the Convention. Individual States remain responsible for regulating their aviation industries but have to take into account the requirements of the Convention and the minimum standards established by ICAO.
The main standards that apply to airlines are in three of the 18 Annexes.
¨ Annex 1 deals with personnel licensing including flight crew
¨ Annex 6 deals with the operation of aircraft; and
¨ Annex 8 deals with airworthiness.
The principles of the programme are simple: in each ECAC (*) State, foreign aircraft (ECAC or non-ECAC) can be inspected.
Which aircraft and operators are checked and how often?
Oversight authorities of ECAC Member States choose which aircraft to inspect. Some authorities carry out random inspections while others try to target aircraft or airlines that they suspect may not comply with ICAO standards. In either case only a very small proportion of foreign aircraft operating into each State are inspected.
This is civil aviation, meaning even military complexes operating on commercial basis civil airtransport have to adhere to these standards.
Countries maybe excluded by the UN of participation in civil aviation (also in shipping), which happened to military dictators and other sanctioned countries.
iow, these standards are not established for migrating birds!
(*) (ECAC) European Civil Aviation Conference .
(*) The 41 Member States of ECAC are: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.
(1) I suppose many, and certainly experts, have seen the clouds forming over some operators, but preferred to 'shut up', as they feared to be called 'racists'. But this kind of intimidation was fired at me earlier, but that is in my perception says more about the senders than about the target. Usually these senders do not know what they're talking about.
(2)
Minimum means standards sine qua non. Minimum can be severe! Do not mistake on that.
Even when carriers and media of some countries are saying, yes we are banned on 'minimum standard conditions'. Precisely the same ones, who do not know what they're talking about, will consider 'minimum as low treshold, and the defects as peccadillos.
About ignorance: Albert Einstein said:
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
Daniel Boorstin said:
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge.
Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Zoom if you want
