HiFly attended the 20th annual general meeting of the Africa Aviation Safety Council (AFRASCO) in Gaborone – Botswana.
The Africa Aviation Safety Council started as ECASAFI and was formed in 1989 to address aviation safety concerns in the southern and eastern regions of Africa only. In 1998 AFRASCO replaced ECASAFI with a vision to encompass the entire continent of Africa and to be the only regional organization pursuing ways to address safety concerns therein.
AFRASCO Executive Committee 2011
AFRASCO promotes Aviation Safety in Africa through:
Encouragement of a pro-active approach to aviation safety in Africa.
Prevention of aircraft accidents and incidents.
Identification of unsafe acts, practices, conditions and make joint effort to take corrective measures.
AFRASCO members are Council Member Airlines, Ground Handlers, etc and any other organization having operations in Africa as well as any other person, institution, aerospace manufacturer, institutes of higher learning, research institutions or any other organization interested in the promotion of aviation safety which the Executive Committee deems will contribute to safety in aviation.
This year the conference was hosted by Air Botswana.
We were invited to the meeting on the name of SAGEM Flight Data Monitoring. This was the first time we contributed to AFRASCO. With SAGEM objectives to improve aviation safety by providing a comprehensive service that gathers the most powerful features and the most useful tools of an FDM program, we were right in the theme of this AGM this year “Advancing Aviation Safety in Africa”.
We did appreciate the presence of the Botswana Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Nonofo Molefhi, throughout the meeting, as well as several representative of the local CAA, the GM of Air Botswana Ms Sakhile Reiling, and numerous Air Botswana’s delegates.
The minister decried the lagging behind of Sub-Saharan Africa, in comparison with the rest of the world, in the advancement of aviation safety. Africa as a whole is still rated as having the highest aviation related accidents. In instances where Europe had 0.3 hull losses per million departures for operators based on the European Aviation Safety Agenda, Africa registered 9.2 hull losses per million departures.
The meeting itself is oriented towards sharing information on how to improve safety, through various presentations and open discussions. All attendees are very much willing to share good industry behaviour. AFRASCO would deserve a wider attendance from airlines and industry partners.
Alexandra Guillot and Chamsou Adjorin - Boeing Director for Africa & Middle East Commerical Airplanes Aviation Safety
