FRESH allegations were brought up yesterday against Civil Aviation before the committee of inquiry that is looking into responsibility for last August’s Helios air disaster.
Former CA official Charalambos Hadjigeorgiou picked up right where he left off on Tuesday, painting a picture of a corrupt department interested only in keeping up appearances.
Without mincing his words, Hadjigeorgiou cited one compelling anecdote after another to show the CA was cutting corners when it came to air safety – and in the process fooling the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
As a member of the JAA (Joint Aviation Authorities), Cyprus is obliged to maintain common safety regulatory standards and procedures. But the reality was very different, Hadjigeorgiou claimed.
But even more alarmingly, the CA was affording Helios Airways – the airline in the spotlight –preferential treatment.
In one instance, Helios asked to lease a plane from Egypt. Even though no airworthiness tests were carried out on the aircraft, the CA granted Helios a licence to fly it, he claimed.
According to Hadjigeorgiou, a team of CA officials had travelled to Egypt to inspect the plane, but for some reason never got to actually see it. Nevertheless, on their return to Cyprus they approved the licence.
Hadjigeorgiou said this was just one example of being blindsided by his colleagues: he himself did not make the trip, nor was he kept informed on the case.
“I heard it from the news,” he said.
But more drama unfolded before the cameras at the committee hearing yesterday, when its chairman Panayiotis Kallis unveiled official correspondence regarding the “Egyptian incident”.
Kallis presented a letter by the Transport Ministry’s permanent secretary Makis Constantinides, who was asking for clarifications about the trip.
The response from the former deputy director of Civil Aviation was that the department had received verbal instructions from Transport Minister Harris Thrassou to accommodate Helios.
The revelation caused uproar in the room, with the victims’ relatives wasting no time in calling for the minister’s resignation.
But their demands were swiftly brushed aside later in the day, when Government Spokesman Christodoulos Pashardis cautioned against a trial by media.
Seen as a stool pigeon by his ex-colleagues, Hadjigeorgiou said the CA pulled out all the stops to convince EASA that it was up to scratch. One allegedly dodgy practice was for the department to replenish manpower for its SRU (Safety Regulation Unit) from the broader civil service, especially whenever an inspection was imminent.
That was done, Hadjigeorgiou contended, to keep European air safety authorities off the CA’s back.
At that point, Kallis asked him what was behind these attempts to trick EASA.
“Personal interests were at stake,” Hadjigeorgiou replied, hinting at politics and clash of personalities within the department.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing adjourned for the day, the victims’ relatives were livid with the allegations of gross negligence.
“It seems Mr Thrasou was trying to expedite the lease [of the Egyptian plane] and save money. I don’t understand why Mr Thrasou is so keen to help Helios,” said Nicolas Yiasoumis, who heads a committee representing the relatives.
“As far as the plane that crashed is concerned, it was a flying coffin that killed 121 souls,” he added.
To the families and friends of those who perished aboard the Boeing 737, the Transport Ministry is, by association, also responsible for the tragedy.
Yesterday’s deliberations before the committee of inquiry served to fuel speculation that Helios and Civil Aviation were in cahoots, in the sense the two jointly tried to sweep under the rug glaring safety omissions.
In this climate of recriminations and raging passions, every bit of information that comes out has tended to be hyped up and blown out of proportion, and this even before the release of the final report into what caused the crash.
