November 2008 | Vol 1 | Issue 47
US to deny SAA entry but Chad OK's carriers safety standards
PRETORIA. South African Airways has dismissed recent claims that its safety standards have slipped dangerously low, saying that there are still many places in the world that welcome SAA aircraft, such as Chad, Afghanistan, and parts of eastern Siberia. It also says that the Chinese government has offered to help with dredging and salvage operations if and when needed.
Recent rumours circulating in the aviation industry suggested that SAA was about to be banned from entering American airspace for failing to comply with minimum safety requirements.
But this morning a spokesman for the company insisted that no such action was being taken against the airline.
"The minimum safety standards are very clear," said spokesman Biggles Nsebeza.
"All our aircraft are required to fly horizontally, at a height which takes into account escarpments and volcanoes.
"50 percent of their engines must remain attached to their wings once they are off the ground, and if this proves untenable then the remaining 50 percent should be discarded over non-urban areas."
He said that pilots were also required to mark the exact location of where engines were discarded, so that maintenance crews could "go and find the bits and glue them back on so they didn't need to be replaced with expensive Chinese replica parts".
"All SAA crews must also refrain from murdering their passengers, whether by opening the doors at altitude or feeding them egg-mayonnaise sandwiches prepared and packaged next to a sewerage-treatment plant."
He said that SAA met all these criteria "except maybe for the sandwiches".
According to Nsebeza the civil aviation authorities of countries such as Chad and Afghanistan had welcomed SAA aircraft, but he added that South African pilots would have be trained to understand Afghan air traffic control systems, which tended to rely on semaphore flags and usually featured large herds of women being driven back and forth across the runway by packs of feral dogs.
"It's a little different. For example in South Africa you're told by the tower to make an approach on Runway 1 or Runway 2, and they give you a vector and a time of arrival.
"At Kabul they catapult one burning apostate into the sky to indicate Runway 1.
"There isn't a Runway 2 but sometimes they catapult two burning apostates into the sky, just to make sure.
"It can be very confusing."
However, he added, it was part of living in a global village.
"Sometimes you have to land on the roof the global village," he said.
"And as we at SAA always say: as long as the plane is on the ground, on at least one wheel, and the fire in the starboard wing isn't likely to spread to the cabin, and everyone on board has signed a waiver, all's well that ends well."
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