FIJI Airways managing director and CEO Stefan Pichler says any emergency incident — such as the air turn back of an outbound flight to Auckland last week because of fumes inside the cabin — provided an opportunity for emergency responses to be tested and lessons to be learnt.
“We have an emergency response team, we do exercises and we comply 100 per cent with international safety and security standards and they are audited every year by the International Air Transport Association, International Civil Aviation Organisation and even other airlines,” he said.
“In regards to incidents like the air turn back — which happen about eight or nine times a year — we launch internal investigations.
“This is not done to find someone guilty but we launch internal investigations to see how the processes developed, who did what? Did everything run according to plan?
“Sometimes, we identify areas that can be improved and we improve on these areas. In air turn backs we also check if everybody did everything according to the book and according to approved standards.”
Mr Pichler said the defective valve which caused fumes to leak into the air-conditioning unit could not have been detected prior to the aircraft taking off.
“Sometimes this happens, aircraft are very highly sophisticated machines.
“The pilot did the right thing by turning back.”
When queried about the air turn back of a Samoa-bound Fiji Link ATR aircraft five days after the Fiji Airways incident, Mr Pichler said Apia did not have the necessary engineering equipment to conduct repairs.
“This was just a precaution by the pilot because the parameters showing in the cockpit were within the limit but the problem was that in Apia we do not have any substantial engineering backup.
“If we were to fix something in Apia, it would have taken us a while, so to ensure we didn’t strand the aircraft in Apia, the pilot turned back to Nadi.”
