Former Senior Legal Officer of the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA), Djibril Birasse Bâ disputes the conclusions of the investigation conducted by the Office of Investigation and Analysis for the safety of civil aviation (BEA) in the collision in September 2015 between a small plane from Senegalair and a Boeing from the Equatorial Guinean company CEIBA. The accident had killed seven people. Focus
An Equatorial Guinean airline banned from flying throughout Europe and the United States for more than ten (10) years;
• The same company, ranking high on the blacklist of “the most dangerous airlines in the world”;
• A Pilot, Commander on board, guilty of “hit and run”, and at the end,
• An “indictment” of SENEGALAIR officials and “the examination” of the Director General of our Civil Aviation Administration.
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The indictment of the Director General of ANACIM and the indictment of the Director of SENEGALAIR and some senior officials of Civil Aviation of Senegal is hardly surprising in view of the findings of the Final Report of the Office Surveys and Analysis of Senegal – BEA – in the accident of 5 September 2015, between the Boeing 737 800 of the Equatorial Guinean company CEIBA INTERCONTINENTAL and HS 25 of SENEGALAIR, the Senegalese airline.
The BEA Final Report, available on its website “www.bea.sn” leaves no doubt about SENEGALAIR’s responsibility for the cause of the accident.
While we generally expect to find nuances, some questions and doubts in an investigation, and especially aeronautical, which has lasted more than two (2) years, we see in the Final Report that wide inventory of alleged failures, shortcomings and deficiencies in SENEGALAIR.
Nothing will have been spared us. We thus discover, from the beginning of the Report, that the aircraft of SENEGALAIR did not have a Certificate of Airworthiness -CDN-, that it was overexploited and therefore, misused. The Report also mentions that the aircraft was not maintained regularly and that the Pilot did not fulfill the prerequisites for flying a Senegalese-registered aircraft.
We are even told that the leaders of SENEGALAIR were unable to mobilize the money necessary for the correct operation of the aircraft, that the Staff Work Contracts did not respect the Senegalese legislation, and so on.
Concerning the Equatorial Guinean airline CEIBA Intercontinental, there is nothing to report. Everything is perfect.
The BEA Senegal has certainly forgotten to mention that the airlineCEIBA has been banned from flying throughout Europe and the United States since April 11, 2008, and the investigators have probably not dared to announce that CEIBA is beautiful and well, and prominently on the 2017 updated blacklist, the most dangerous airlines in the world.
The Investigations and Analyzes Bureau of Senegal has mostly failed to report in its Final Report, all that the airline CEIBA and its pilots have done and that they should not do.
Whether it was the hit-and-run crime or the maneuvers that had erased the on-board recordings, the scattering of witnesses – CEIBA passengers disembarked in Malabo and not in Cotonou – everything seems to have been done to prevent the manifestation of the truth.
The approach of the BEA investigators is more like an “instruction to charge” against SENEGALAIR, with the simple conclusion that the collusion, which occurred at more than ten thousand (10,000) meters above sea level, is the result of the crew’s incompetence. SENEGALAIR and the technical failures of their aircraft.
We will therefore recall the facts, referring mainly to the content of the Final Report, to highlight the arguments put forward by the BEA to try to establish the culpability of SENEGALAIR, to take into account the rejections of the evidence provided by the BEA and to conclude on the issues that mainly concern CEIBA and which BEA Senegal is stubbornly refusing to ask.
According to the initial information, there would have been a collision between the two (2) aircraft, which the results of the technical investigation will confirm or invalidate. The CEIBA flight, which took off from Dakar at 17:29, finally made Cape Town on Malabo where it landed at 21:40 GMT.
Note that the collision is a collusion between two (2) aircraft in flight.
B. LOADING C / SENEGALAIR
The BEA first proceeds to an exhaustive inventory of all the deficiencies of SENEGALAIR. This is how we are taught that:
1. The Certificate of Airworthiness – CDN – of the aircraft was not valid and that even the Air Operational Permit – PEA – had been validated only for a limited duration;
2. The co-pilot’s license was not valid and he was not to fly a Senegalese-registered aircraft;
3. The locomotive engineer was no longer authorized to maintain the aircraft; and worst of all,
4. The SENEGALAIR aircraft had serious altimetry problems because “the altimeter of the aircraft was defective with the result that the aircraft would be out of normal”;
5. The aircraft was abused and not properly maintained, and the airline was in serious financial trouble, and so on.
To try to establish the culpability of SENEGALAIR, we do not hesitate on the means; For example, the BEA will use events in 2013 and 2014 to demonstrate that SENEGALAIR’s aircraft was experiencing a “latent technical failure”. The BEA will travel to Ouagadougou to, among other things, highlight the financial difficulties of SENEGALAIR. But, what is especially surprising in BEA Senegal’s investigation is that, well before the publication of the Final Report, investigators were informed of deficiencies, shortcomings and other errors concerning their accusations.
C. CHARGES WITHOUT BASIS
Whether it is the Certificate of Airworthiness, valid until June 30 and renewed on July 1, 2015, the license of the co-pilot perfectly valid or the skill of the mechanic escort, all charges BEA Senegal are unfounded under the Senegalese Aviation Regulations.
Regarding the SENEGALAIR mechanic, the BEA investigators were informed, as soon as the Preliminary Report was published, that he had “the necessary clearance to perform the maintenance of the aircraft and to approve his return to service”. .
Regarding the altimeter of the aircraft, an instrument that allows to know precisely the exact altitude of the aircraft and which is, besides, the main argument against the BEA against SENEGALAIR and the main cause of the collision between SENEGALAIR and the CEIBA Intercontinental, ANACIM had already indicated that nothing, absolutely nothing, allows to affirm it.
In the investigation conducted by the BEA, one has the impression that everything is done to establish the idea that the plane of CEIBA was at level FL 350 and that it is the plane of SENEGALAIR which has abandoned its level flight to cross that of CEIBA, position itself at the level above this one, and try to descend again to the level FL 340, with always on board, a patient in absolute urgency.
Nothing allows the BEA Senegal to assume such a ridiculous scenario, especially since the crew of SENEGALAIR has always complied with its “Flight Plan FL 340” and all its level changes have been made, after authorization of the Controllers, and in accordance with the Regulations.
CEIBA’s FDR indicators, which are defective in many respects, are not enough to establish this statement objectively. Moreover, one understands perfectly the reaction of the Deputy Director of SENEGALAIR which was carried away remembering that his plane had three (3) altimeters and that it would be the height if the 3 broke down at the same time. After all, let’s not forget that SENEGALAIR made more than a dozen sorties in Morocco and Tunisia, as well as in many airspace of ASECNA and, for the displacement of Ouaga, was chartered by the Mutuelle Insurance Institute, which is still a guarantee of seriousness and credibility.
But, what is surprising, to say the least, is that the Director of BEA Senegal and the investigator-designate knew well, as of January 2017, that the accusations against SENEGALAIR are not established and that nothing allows, for now, to lay the responsibility and even less, the guilt of SENEGALAIR. It is not clear, therefore, why the BEA has maintained in the Final Report such serious accusations, most of which have been rejected by our National Aeronautical Administration.
This is worse than defamation, because by doing so, we definitely condemn a company and above all, a crew from every point of view, competent and responsible.
A. The REMINDER OF THE FACTS
It is by a Communiqué made public Sunday, September 6, 2015, the day after the crash, that the General Direction of the National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology – ANACIM -, Aeronautical Administration of Senegal ,, announces “that an aircraft of SENEGALAIR, registered 6V AIM, from Ouagadougou and currently under investigation at sea, had crossed the flight CEIBA Intercontinental, Boeing 737 800 CEL 071 to Cotonou, at 18h 12mn TU, about 300 NM is 555 km from Dakar “.
According to the initial information, there would have been a collision between the two (2) aircraft, which the results of the technical investigation will confirm or invalidate. The CEIBA flight, which took off from Dakar at 17:29, finally made Cape Town on Malabo where it landed at 21:40 GMT.
Note that the collision is a collusion between two (2) aircraft in flight.
B. LOADING C / SENEGALAIR
The BEA first proceeds to an exhaustive inventory of all the deficiencies of SENEGALAIR. This is how we are taught that:
1. The Certificate of Airworthiness – CDN – of the aircraft was not valid and that even the Air Operational Permit – PEA – had been validated only for a limited duration;
2. The co-pilot’s license was not valid and he was not to fly a Senegalese-registered aircraft;
3. The locomotive engineer was no longer authorized to maintain the aircraft; and worst of all,
4. The SENEGALAIR aircraft had serious altimetry problems because “the altimeter of the aircraft was defective with the result that the aircraft would be out of normal”;
5. The aircraft was abused and not properly maintained, and the airline was in serious financial trouble, and so on.
To try to establish the culpability of SENEGALAIR, we do not hesitate on the means; For example, the BEA will use events in 2013 and 2014 to demonstrate that SENEGALAIR’s aircraft was experiencing a “latent technical failure”. The BEA will travel to Ouagadougou to, among other things, highlight the financial difficulties of SENEGALAIR. But, what is especially surprising in BEA Senegal’s investigation is that, well before the publication of the Final Report, investigators were informed of deficiencies, shortcomings and other errors concerning their accusations.
C. CHARGES WITHOUT BASIS
Whether it is the Certificate of Airworthiness, valid until June 30 and renewed on July 1, 2015, the license of the co-pilot perfectly valid or the skill of the mechanic escort, all charges BEA Senegal are unfounded under the Senegalese Aviation Regulations.
Regarding the SENEGALAIR mechanic, the BEA investigators were informed, as soon as the Preliminary Report was published, that he had “the necessary clearance to perform the maintenance of the aircraft and to approve his return to service”. .
Regarding the altimeter of the aircraft, an instrument that allows to know precisely the exact altitude of the aircraft and which is, besides, the main argument against the BEA against SENEGALAIR and the main cause of the collision between SENEGALAIR and the CEIBA Intercontinental, ANACIM had already indicated that nothing, absolutely nothing, allows to affirm it.
In the investigation conducted by the BEA, one has the impression that everything is done to establish the idea that the plane of CEIBA was at level FL 350 and that it is the plane of SENEGALAIR which has abandoned its level flight to cross that of CEIBA, position itself at the level above this one, and try to descend again to the level FL 340, with always on board, a patient in absolute urgency.
Nothing allows the BEA Senegal to assume such a ridiculous scenario, especially since the crew of SENEGALAIR has always complied with its “Flight Plan FL 340” and all its level changes have been made, after authorization of the Controllers, and in accordance with the Regulations.
CEIBA’s FDR indicators, which are defective in many respects, are not enough to establish this statement objectively. Moreover, one understands perfectly the reaction of the Deputy Director of SENEGALAIR which was carried away remembering that his plane had three (3) altimeters and that it would be the height if the 3 broke down at the same time. After all, let’s not forget that SENEGALAIR made more than a dozen sorties in Morocco and Tunisia, as well as in many airspace of ASECNA and, for the displacement of Ouaga, was chartered by the Mutuelle Insurance Institute, which is still a guarantee of seriousness and credibility.
But, what is surprising, to say the least, is that the Director of BEA Senegal and the investigator-designate knew well, as of January 2017, that the accusations against SENEGALAIR are not established and that nothing allows, for now, to lay the responsibility and even less, the guilt of SENEGALAIR. It is not clear, therefore, why the BEA has maintained in the Final Report such serious accusations, most of which have been rejected by our National Aeronautical Administration.
This is worse than defamation, because by doing so, we definitely condemn a company and above all, a crew from every point of view, competent and responsible.
D. FAULTS AND BREACHES OF CEIBA
As the Final Report was very prolix concerning SENEGALAIR, listing, in detail, all that this company should have done, as the BEA is totallymuet on all the failings of the Equatorial Guinean company CEIBA Intercontinental.
It should be remembered that CEIBA is not only “banned from flying all over Europe and the United States”, but ranks high on the 2017 updated blacklist of the most dangerous airlines in the world.
However, the companies on this list are “those operating under conditions that are below internationally recognized key security levels”. That CEIBA has been on the European blacklist for more than ten (10) years is a proof of this company’s lack of credit.
But what must be criticized above all for CEIBA is the hit and run, aggravated by the behavior of the Captain.
1. The hit and run
The CEIBA crew first made a “near collusion” (a near miss) with traffic passing through their flight level, while insisting that it was FL 350. The behavior of the crew is then characterized by the refusal to provide the least information after the contact between the two (2) aircraft and a constant violation of elementary rules for aviation safety.
Let’s go back to the facts.
The plane of CEIBA, from the time of the collision, first contacted Bamako instead of Dakar while it was still in the airspace under control of Dakar. And it is only after he signals the collision and declares that everything is under control. The crew stubbornly refuses to provide any information and spends all their time asking for information about the SENEGALAIR aircraft. However, in view of the damage caused by the contact between the two (2) aircraft, it is impossible for the crew to be aware of the collision as soon as the impact occurred.
While air regulations and air law require the crew to land immediately in “the first suitable airport”, namely Bamakoou Dakar, the Captain – CBD – decides to join his base in Malabo – to more than 3,000 Km -, even refusing to land in Cotonou, much closer and destination airport of almost all passengers.
However, by deciding to join his base in Malabo, by a flight of 03 h 28 mn without control of the consequences and the risks incurred, the Commander of the CEIBA erases at the same time, all the recordings of cockpit conversations, communications, alarms and flight signals; in fact, recorders that turn in a loop retain only the last two (2) hours of recording.
Thus, the refusal of the CEIBA pilot to land and go directly to his base makes it above all impossible to know the state of the aircraft and the crew members at the time of the shock. And worst of all, it prevents investigators from collecting the testimony of passengers on the flight.
This is an aggravated hit-and-run offense in air criminal law.
But what is surprising in the BEA Senegal Final Report is the total silence observed by the investigator and the BEA Director on this hit and run. It is not mentioned anywhere in the Final Report. The BEA Senegal will have achieved the feat, in an accident investigation involving the company CEIBA, not to mention in its Final Report, nor the ban on theft that strikes this company in Europe and the United States for more than ten years ( 10 years, or the presumption of a hit and run committed by one of his pilots.
It is no longer just an “investigation against him” against SENEGALAIR, but serious suspicion of complicity in an aggravated crime.
But if the BEA is silent with regard to the Commander of the flight of CEIBA, this is not the case of the officials of this company.
2. Declarations by CEIBA officials
On Thursday, September 17, 2015, ten days after the accident, a daily newspaper announced that two (2) French investigators, deployed by Paris – one of the missing persons was French – are in Malabo to inspect the Boeing 737 CEIBA before hearing the crew of the aircraft, including “the fugitive pilot”.
And as if to answer this accusation, we learned two (2) days later, the reaction of the Equatorial Guinean authorities who hailed the act of the Captain of the CEIBA – CDB – for “his coolness”, stating that if the CBD had panicked, there would have been a lot of deaths. And the Representative of CEIBA to clarify that “the pilot did not fled. He made the best choice by returning to Malabo to avoid extra expenses. If he had continued to Cotonou, the plane would be immobilized there and we would have to pay parking fees. Moreover, the pilot will be decorated soon by the Equatorial Guinean authorities “.
The seven (7) dead on the Senegalese side are, no doubt, nothing compared to parking fees.
It is easy to understand, in view of such statements by the representative of this company, why CEIBA is banned from flying in Europe and the United States.
E. THE CONDUCT OF THE SURVEY
In its conduct of the investigation, the BEA Senegal has proceeded to actions whose utility is questioned in the understanding of the accident. This is how he went to Ouag and Malabo. These various movements called “AUDIT” certainly did not contribute to the manifestation of the truth.
The BEA then traveled to France and the United States.
• Travel to Ouaga and Malabo
In the Final Report, we are informed that the BEA met, in Ouaga, the services in charge of the assistance and the fuel suppliers whose offers were rejected by the crew of SENEGALAIR. And the BEA infers, without hesitation, that it is for “financial reasons”.
However, being a plane chartered for a medical evacuation, and having to transport a patient in absolute urgency, one wonders why wasting time cleaning chairs or scanning the floor. Moreover, it is obvious that the plane was put in excellent conditions of hygiene, cleanliness and cleanliness before the departure of Dakar, for obvious medical reasons.
As for the fuel, a simple telephone call at Yoff Airport would have enabled the investigator to know that SENEGALAIR had refueled in Dakar and that he therefore had enough fuel to make almost two (2) ) round trip. Obviously, it’s a lot more sneaky accusations than an investigation.
Regarding the trip to Malabo to meet the crew, collectively and individually as the case may be, only one response was provided to BEA Senegal, namely: “we heard a slight noise”.
The BEA would have rather gained by going to Cotonou, make a call to witnesses, try to find passengers of the flight to learn what really happened. The BEA could even have been accompanied, from the beginning, by Agents and Officers of Judicial Police from us, experienced and able to determine the points of contact, the position of the aircraft at the time of the collision, …. And bring answers to many questions about the accident.
But, you had to want it.
• Travel to the BEA in France and the United States
The BEA Senegal went to the airport of Le Bourget, headquarters of BEA France for the operation of flight data recorders and conversations in the cockpit – the black boxes – received from the company CEIBA, “by container with padlock, more than 45 days after the collusion “and while stating, that the move was made” in the presence of all parties “.
For the BEA Senegal, by all the parties, it is necessary to understand, besides the investigators, the accredited Representative of Equatorial Guinea accompanied by three (3) advisers of the CEIBA and a representative of the Civil Aviation Authority of Equatorial Guinea. Neither SENEGALAIR, ASECNA, ANACIM nor Dakar Airport were represented.
• Regarding cockpit recordings, they were all erased as the aircraft flew more than three (3) hours to reach its base. BEAShegal does not however make any comment on the fact that the pilot’s, the co-pilot’s and the cockpit’s cockpit microphone are all non-functional and that all conversations, sounds and alarms are unintelligible. Better or worse, the transcription of certain information has been done thanks to the Director of Operations of CEIBA.
• Regarding the FDR flight data recorder, BEA Senegal asserts that the CEIBA Boeing 737 has made all its cruise at FL 350 – from Dakar to Malabo – (over 3,000 Km) , while the whole area crossed was covered by strong storm-storm disturbances.
Similarly, it is very regrettable that BEA Senegal was not aware of “the lack of detection by the Dakar Radar Control and the surrounding traffic of another CEIBA Boeing 737.800”, which took place on 16 September 2015, ten (10) days after the crash. The explanations of ASECNA would have been, without doubt, very instructive.
• On a more serious note, BEA Senegal fails to mention in its conclusions, the fact reported by BEA France, that “the trajectory of the CEIBA Boeing 737, obtained from the latitude and longitude recorded in the FDR , has been traced in Google Earth and that for some unknown reason, this trajectory has an offset of several hundred meters visible at takeoff and landing.
• With regard to the TCAS, a traffic warning and collision avoidance system, examined in the United States, the BEA mentions that the CEIBA Boeing 737 is operating normally and adds, without any physical evidence, that that of the plane of SENEGALAIR “broke down intermittently”, prompting rightly reason, the ire of the Direction of the ANACIM. One is, however, obliged to question the utility of a TCAS which warns nobody, in the planes of the company CEIBA.
• Finally, we are surprised that the BEA Senegal did not mention the hit and run while the builder Boeing made it clear that “from the cockpit, we can not evaluate the consequences of the impact on the structure. of the plane and therefore on the safety of the passengers; and therefore, it would have been more appropriate to land on the first suitable airport, Bamako or Dakar and to apply the appropriate procedures “. The pilot of CEIBA knows very well that the continuation of the flight, besides erasing all the recordings, is constitutive of the hit and run.
F. RESPONSIBILITIES IN CRASH
To situate each other’s responsibilities in the crash, BEA Senegal begins by listing what he calls “established facts”. These are all charges against SENEGALAIR, already known and related to the Certificate of Airworthiness -CDN, Pilot and Co-pilot Licenses, authentications, etc. The BEA takes again the same arguments concerning the absence of solid financial surface, offers us a course of labor law on the Contracts and in fine, of the altimeter of the plane of SENEGALAIR. Everything is taken again, before he gives us the main cause of the accident:
• The Commander of the CEIBA aircraft stated that he saw “SENEGALAIR’s plane coming down on them”;
• The altimetry defect may have contributed to the collusion in flight.
Thus, if we dismiss all the accusations related to the Licenses, CDN, the competence of the mechanics and others rejected by the ANACIM, Authority of the Civil Aviation in Senegal, it remains only the declaration of a Commander of Edge, co-author of the accident, guilty of the aggravated leakage offense, to establish the responsibility of SENEGALAIR.
In view of the arguments put forward, unsubstantiated accusations and the silence on some elements of the investigation, one can only wonder if there is no obvious desire to make a “prosecution investigation”.
Too bad that the crew of SENEGALAIR who has shown, in view of his contacts with the air control bodies, a courtesy, a coolness and a great serenity, is not alive to bring his part of the truth.
It is also very unfortunate that the members of the medical team who had left to save a life – a humanitarian for that matter – have lost their lives.
In conclusion, we must note serious weaknesses in the investigation and above all, a clear desire not to get to the bottom of things, particularly with regard to the responsibilities of ASECNA, yet on the front line, the ANACIM and especially the crew and officials of the airline CEIBA Intercontinental.
Let’s hope that we will not have to undergo in a while, a new “jurisprudence Boat JOOLA”, namely that there is no responsible and only the crew of SENEGALAIR, at the bottom of the ocean , is guilty of the crash.
Dakar, April 27, 2018
Djibril Birasse BA
