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ARGENTINA: An (Air) Accident Waiting to Happen?

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 22 2007 (IPS) - Although the Argentine government is adamant that air transport safety is guaranteed, for the past 80 days the main airports in the country have been facing an unprecedented crisis. Air traffic controllers are operating without radars, flights are delayed or cancelled, and the risks are mounting.

“Ezeiza international airport (on the outskirts of Buenos Aires) should have 30 air traffic controllers, but only 16 are on duty,” César Salas, the head of the Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (ACTA), told IPS. He was transferred to a desk job after 25 years of work in the control tower because he became a whistle-blower.

“Lack of investment in new technology, together with the increased number of flights because of the growth in tourism, meant that we were overwhelmed with work and without the tools to guarantee safety,” Salas said about the crisis that broke out in March when one of the radars stopped functioning.

Tourism Secretary Enrique Meyer admitted Monday that air traffic has increased four-fold in the last four years. He was answering a question about a fall in ticket sales in recent weeks, which most people involved attribute to deficiencies in service and lack of safety.

But above and beyond the rise in demand and the breakdown of the radar, the crisis in air traffic control, which is run by the military, had already been described in “Fuerza Aérea S.A.” (Air Force Inc.), a documentary film by pilot and air safety expert Enrique Piñeyro, which came out in 2006 and led to a lawsuit.

Piñeyro turned to film-making in 1999, when he resigned from LAPA airlines over concerns about lack of safety within the company. Soon after he left, a LAPA plane slewed off the runway as it was taking off, and 67 people were killed. That story was told by Piñeyro in another film, “Whisky, Romeo, Zulu”.

Now Piñeyro has brought legal action against the air force top brass, accusing them of lack of concern about safety, and he warned in March about the risk of collisions between “a large number of planes carrying thousands of passengers.”

The alarm bells rang on Mar.2, when the primary radar – which detects planes in flight and relays the information to controllers’ screens – was damaged by a storm. The back-up radar is working, but experts believe that the data it transmits are insufficient.

The government is trying to rent a radar, which has not yet materialised, and has put out to tender for the supply of new equipment. Meanwhile, traffic controllers are using a manual system which creates delays. Airplanes can take off safely every two minutes with radar control, but only every ten minutes without it.

Since reverting to manual control methods, unions and associations of air traffic technicians and professional controllers have reported at least six “near collision” situations involving planes on the ground or in the air. But the state continues to disregard the warnings and denies any serious risk.

Defence Minister Nilda Garré has repeatedly emphasised that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is satisfied that safety is guaranteed, and she maintains that the large airlines would not fly in Argentine airspace unless minimum security conditions were in place.

However, Salas rejects these arguments. “Airlines have commitments to their passengers, and there are agreements between countries over routes that cannot be cancelled. But they do have to be especially careful about taking off and landing in Argentina,” he said.

According to an ICAO report released in April, air traffic in and out of Buenos Aires, where 30 planes take off every hour, suffers from an authority and discipline vacuum, lack of vigilance on safety matters on the part of the authorities, and a prevalence of personal initiative over the following of established criteria.

Shortly after that, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) issued a recommendation to pilots flying in Argentine airspace to be extremely vigilant and alert. And last weekend, a warning arrived from the Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA).

Marc Baumgartner, the head of IFATCA, told The Washington Post that flights to Argentina must be reduced until the new radar is working, in order to avoid “a very serious accident.” The controllers are completely overwhelmed by work, he warned.

Criticism of air traffic control as operated by the air force prompted the administration of Néstor Kirchner to order a gradual transfer of air control to a new National Civil Aviation Authority, in September 2006.

But both the installation of the new radar and the transfer of air traffic control authority have been delayed, and the risks are increasing. “We are very concerned, the system has deteriorated and the authorities are just denying that there are any problems,” Pablo Biro of the Argentine Air Line Pilots’ Association told IPS.

“The government wants to blame the unions and the technical and professional associations for creating insecurity with our reports, but our main aim is to maintain air safety,” he said. He accused the air force, on the other hand, of mismanaging the air traffic control system.

ACTA’s Salas agreed with the criticism. “The air force was not proactive in terms of investment, and the large airlines that operate in our airspace do not have adequate ground support,” he said.

Seventy percent of ACTA’s members are military personnel and 30 percent are civilians. All of its members are under military discipline, even the civilians.

Salas complained that the air force is resisting the transfer of air traffic control to civilian authority by taking disciplinary action against those who report safety problems. “They are applying unheard of military pressure, instead of supporting the work of air traffic controllers so they can operate with peace of mind,” he said.

Disciplinary action takes the form of suspension from work, or transfers like that of Salas. In addition, the aeronautical authorities have set armed guards in the control tower at Ezeiza and the Jorge Newbery airport which caters for domestic flights, a measure which the controllers interpret as intimidation.