Aviation News Item: 00151

6th Nov 2009

Source: ubmaviationnews.com

Air France (AF) has dismissed Gilbert Rovetto, deputy general director flight operations, and formed a committee with pilots to review and reform the airline's flight safety processes and practices, according to media reports. The move comes after company pilots criticised the management, following the A330 crash in the South Atlantic on June 1, for alleged inaction on safety issues and threatened to go on strike. Members of the Spaf pilot union conducted their own investigation into the accident and filed their report with the French judicial authorities in October. They claimed that the accident could have been avoided and that Airbus, Air France, EASA and other aviation authorities including Le Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA), the French air accident investigation authority, paid insufficient attention to the problems with Pitot tube icing, which had been known for years prior to the accident. Even though they acknowledge that the accident did not happen as the result of a single cause, the pilots claim the aircraft would not have crashed without the failure of the Pitot tubes. Later in October Air France's Marie-Pierre Gautron, director of flight operations, and Stephen Lichtenberger, director of security, in turn sent a letter to the company's pilots telling them not to challenge the official investigation, and to be more vigilant and adhere to safety procedures. The two managers wrote that a previous internal safety audit highlighted careless behavior among pilots that had repeatedly led to a number of incidents where safety was compromised, thereby suggesting pilot error might have played a part in the AF447 crash. Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, CEO of Air France KLM, has now stated that he was convinced the pilots of AF447 acted correctly, and that the new committee should review flight safety without making concessions.

More Aviation News...