Currently, it is quite difficult to accurately establish trends and/or rates to measure accidents and incidents within the aviation industry in Papua New Guinea.
This is according to David Inau, Chief Executive Officer for the Accident Investigation Commission [AIC] of the PNG Civil Aviation Safety Authority [CASA].
Inau says that AIC did not provide statistics during a presentation at the high-llevel civil aviation safety and security conference because there are no trends in PNG aviation. This is due to several factors, including the period in between when accidents and or incidents occur, and the varied difference of each case.
“Due to the nature of each case, it is difficult to make a trend, or come up with a trend,” Inau explains.
“Each accident is different, the nature, the causes are different.
“These days, you cannot find accidents that suffered the same colossal fate,” he reveals.
“Also, accidents happen over a wide range of time, so you cannot accurately predict when an accident will happen.”
Inau says also that AIC has been in operation for six years now, thus the time period is too short to come up with a trend.
AIC became operational in 2010 following the appointment of Inau to head the accidents investigating body because it is an international obligation under the International Civil Aviation Organisation [ICAO].
PNG is a signatory to the Chicago Convention which governs how the country operates, and the government was required to set up an independent investigating body after the ICAO in 2009.