Flight-training programme among concerns behind Air Tanzania blacklisting

Air Tanzania’s blacklisting by the European Commission centres particularly on failure to maintain adequate control of its flight-training programme, and inability to understand the root causes behind safety deficiencies. The carrier, whose fleet includes some of the latest aircraft types, applied for third-country operator authorisation from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in August last year. But EASA denied this authorisation in April, on safety grounds, and the Commission has banned Air Tanzania from European operations in its latest blacklist revision. The Commission’s accompanying justification for the decision refers to a “lack of ability” by the airline to respond to identified safety deficiencies. It specially highlights EASA’s concerns over flight training, and particularly whether the airline assured all types of emergencies and abnormal procedures – for airframe, engine or system malfunction, fires or other “critical” scenarios – featured within its recurrent pilot training. “In view of the considerable number of serious deficiencies identified during its assessment, [EASA] determined that this situation indicates a systemic weakness within the air carrier that compromises safety and poses a serious hazard to flight operations,” it states.<br/>