Since we are still waiting for the official report on an investigation into the fatal aircraft accident in Olympia early this year, last Friday's crash landing at the TransNamib training centre came as a nasty reminder that, perhaps, everything is not well with our civil aviation. I think every Namibian was relieved beyond description to learn that the four passengers and the pilot walked away from the scene alive. But we have to face the truth - a metre more to the right and we would have buried another five people. Incredible luck and a guardian angel working overtime saved these people.

The question we need to ask ourselves is: why do fatal and near-fatal aviation accidents happen with such regularity in Namibia? In South Africa, thousands of aircraft share the skies every day, ranging from large commercial airliners and medium sized crafts to small privately-owned aeroplanes, even to the so-called Ultra-light class, i.e. micro-lights and gyrocopters. It also includes a good dose of military flying equipment. Yet fatal accidents are few and far between.
Here in Namibia, only a few dozen aeroplanes take to the skies on a daily basis with military loads being restricted to the odd flight. Commercial airliners count for less than ten aircraft a day. Furthermore, most of the flights ferrying tourists go to the far away isolated places, so there is no congestion. To see this first-hand, just sit at Eros and watch the traffic. Early in the morning, three or four overnight cargo planes arrive just after six, then five or six private flights leave in fairly quick succession, usually five to ten minutes apart, then the aerodrome settles into its normal daily routine with one flight perhaps every half an hour, if that often. The odd military helicopter may fly once a week with other military movements not counting more than two or three flights a month. Jets are very rare - CDM on Tuesdays, the President's jet maybe twice or thrice a month, and other private jets maybe three or four a week. The Air Namibia B1900 accounts for three or four flights per day. That's it. Nothing to be worried about. So where is the problem?
I can think of only two - airworthiness and pilot training.
As far as I know, there are three certified AMOs (Aircraft maintenance ordinance). These are the people who maintain our local fleet. I know most of them personally and can honestly say that they are not a bunch of scheissters. The overall standard of maintenance in Namibia is excellent. Whatever civil aviation standards apply in South Africa, also apply here. Service schedules are executed according to manufacturer's prescriptions, and STCs (supplemental type certificates) are required for even the slightest modification to any aircraft. This is all fully complied with.
Which brings me to pilot training and personally, I believe this is where the problem may possibly be. The local training institutions are all certified and I am convinced that every newly trained pilot who enters the skies with a PPL (private pilot's license) is just as well trained as his colleagues in South Africa, Europe or the United States. But I believe that is where it ends. Except for the handful of professional pilots, the majority of our pilots is lucky if it flies once a week and, with a not insignificant portion, flying maybe only once a month or even less. And this is where the big difference lies. In really busy skies, in and around really busy aerodromes of which you have dozens in South Africa and hundreds in Europe and the US, professional pilots fly many hours every single day.
I am not an authority on aviation, merely a fan. But I don't need a calculator to point out that our one big advantage, our lack of traffic, may actually translate into our single biggest disadvantage, lack of opportunity, consequently lack of experience.
Imagine the horror if the DC6 with 65 people on board would develop a serious problem shortly after take off and plunge into the Windhoek State Hospital killing a couple of hundreds of people. Only then would one realise that a really serious accident out of Eros has always been waiting for us.
If a gruesome incident was ever to happen, we will be forced to close Eros immediately and not only talk about it as we have done for the past 10 years or so. Imagine the cost of moving the Windhoek-based civil aviation component out to Hosea Kutako.
I do not know a quick solution to our aviation predicament; I only know in terms of statistics, we are way off the charts. Somewhere something is wrong and the onus is on us to do something before a really awful accident happens.