ZAIRE-TRANSPORT: Air Disaster Points To Chaos On The Ground

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Louis Okamba

BRAZZAVILLE, Jan 10 1996 (IPS) - There are parts of Zaire where central government does not reach such is the vastness of the country and so appalling its transport network.

From Kisengani in the east, the only way most people can reach the capital is by boat along the snaking chord of the Zaire river which plugs into the markets of Kinshasa. By road it is only possible by four-wheel-drive vehicles, with a full set of spare- parts and a daring driver, and it takes weeks.

The roads in the provinces are rutted dirt paths, churned up by lorry traffic, which in the raining season are impassable.

Those that can afford it, and whose business demand they travel, fly. For companies operating in the mineral-rich country, air transport is the only sure way that freight can move.

There are more than 100 private air companies operating in Zaire, several of which are Zairean-owned. Many of the aircraft flying are old, second-hand, and far from serviceable. In an attempt to bring some order to a chaotic and hazardous situation the government withdrew the licenses of 60 companies in 1994.

The carnage that killed more than 250 people Monday when an Air Afrique cargo plane ploughed into a market just metres from the runway at Kinshasa’s Ndolo airport has renewed concern over the airworthiness of planes flying in Zaire.

Zaireans watched in horror television picture of mangled corpses, some with heads and limbs severed by the propellers of the Antonov as it failed to gain altitude at take off and slewed through Tipka market, 10 metres from the runway, in Zaire’s worst aviation disaster.

The issue of air safety, and who to blame for the calamity, has reverberated through a shocked country observing three-days of mourning for the dead.

Kinshasa’s Governor, Bernardin Mungul Diaka, acknowledges: “Here we allow a lot of deathtraps to fly and overloading is sure to be a factor in this tragedy. According to the Ministry of Transport, the plane was more than 270 kg overweight, which is not normal.”

A judicial inquiry has been appointed to establish the cause of the crash and the government has ordered the grounding of all cargo planes registered in the country until they pass compulsory technical tests.

That may still not ensure the safety of the commercial aircraft crisscrossing the country between Zaire’s remote copper, gold and diamond mines, its commercial centres and Angola.

Despite the withdrawal of licenses in 1994 of planes that had failed their technical examinations, owners circumvented the regulation by bribing officials and flying by night. In November, a Zairean registered plane that was supposedly grounded, crashed at night in northern Angola killing more than 100 people on-board.

Officials of Zairean Air Navigation, the body responsible for regulating the aviation sector, rarely receive their salaries in a country whose economy has been in long-term crisis. Amid generalised mismanagement, morale is low, and few can afford to turn down a bribe to look the other way.

“In Zaire, a few dollars enables pilots and any aircraft owner to give orders to the body charged with regulating air traffic,” the President of the Pilot’s Association admitted on state-owned radio monitored here.

He however added that “we can’t rule out the possibility that this accident was caused by disregard of basic flying rules by the Russian pilots.”

Four Russian crew members miraculously escaped the crash and the anger of a mob that followed them to a city clinic. “I think these people from distant places don’t hold the necessary qualifications because they’ve never flown back home. For them Zaire is paradise because the civil aeronautics officials don’t impose rules on them,” the association president said.