THE COMMUNICATIONS Ministry yesterday failed to provide any clear answers to allegations made by a senior civil aviation official that among other things, no in-flight checks had been carried out on any aircraft in Cyprus in the past 10 months.
Instead, Minister Harris Thrasou, accompanied by nine Civil Aviation Department and ministry officials, sought to discredit Charalambos Hadjigeorgiou, head of the civil aviation licensing department, by questioning his motives and making vague references to the reasons, which forced the official to leave his previous post with the Greek Civil Aviation Authority.
Hadjigeorgiou’s revelations came in the wake of the August 14 Helios Airways crash in Greece, which killed all 121 people on board.
Speaking on CyBC radio on Thursday, Hadjigeorgiou said no in-flight checks had been carried out on any aircraft belonging to the island’s three airlines, Cyprus Airways, Eurocypria, and Helios.
The inspections examined whether the crew followed the standard operating procedures as they are laid down in the manuals.
And although an ICAO source told the Cyprus Mail on Thursday that the specific inspections were considered the last step in a series of checks, Thrasou yesterday could not confirm if the specific checks had been carried out.
“They were done last year and will be done this year,” the minister said.
He said the EU had no set guidelines concerning the frequency of the specific checks, something which was left to the British advisers the department employed.
“According to the practice followed in Britain and according to our advisers this inspection is conducted once a year,” the minister said.
But a Department of Civil Aviation manual presented to the minister by a journalist stated that the checks should be carried out twice a year.
The minister appeared annoyed with the media, which he said, twisted Hadjigeorgiou’s claims, in a such a way that people thought no checks at all had been carried out on the aircraft.
Fourteen inspections have been carried out between January and August according to the British advisers, the minister said.
He went on to justify the presence of the British advisers and suggested that Hadjigeorgiou was trying to advance his own agenda by constantly doubting their usefulness.
“He did not achieve what he wanted but he achieved his upgrade,” Thrasou said.
He stressed that the state was not paying the two experts hundreds of thousands of pounds and that the money was part of an agreement with the British Civil Aviation Authority for the provision of various services.
The two experts played a vital role in Cyprus achieving membership with the Joint Aviation Authorities – a condition for accession into the EU, the minister said.
“It’s these experts Mr Hadjigeorgiou wanted to get rid of,” he added.
And to top things up, the minister suggested asking Hadjigeorgiou on the circumstances of his departure from the Greek Civil Aviation Department.
“Why did he hide this important fact from his CV?” the minister said.
Despite a barrage of questions, the minister refused to clarify his claim.
He only said that the department only found out about it recently.
And reporters were left wondering why the ministry held the news conference when Thrasou stopped taking questions without having provided any answers to numerous other claims made by Hadjigeorgiou.
The civil aviation official responded swiftly, describing the minister’s comments as below the belt blows, which aimed in covering up the problems in the department.
He pointed out that the department knew about his personal condition from the day he was hired.
“These below the belt blows, untruths and innuendos left lingering in the air simply aim in cloaking the serious problems faced by the Department of Civil Aviation,” Hadjigeorgiou said.
The service knew his personal data, which had been submitted: “If they’ve removed it its their problem,” he said.
Hadjigeorgiou showed reporters a memo, issued by the department when he was hired, which exempts him from the condition of having to possess a pilot license in order to be eligible for the job.
It is understood that he had a license but could no longer fly due to a medical condition, but was exempted because the position did not involve flying.
