Pilot defends airport safety

"Scaremongering comments" made regarding Queenstown Airport was doing little to reassure the "uninitiated or fearful air traveller", one experienced pilot said yesterday.

Queenstown resident Jules Tapper, a multi-engine instrument-rated pilot with 50 years' experience, said recent comments following a possible breach of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations by a Pacific Blue flight on June 22 at Queenstown had enhanced "the public's perception that Queenstown has a difficult and unsafe airport".

Two Pacific Blue pilots have been stood down pending an investigation into the incident.

It has been alleged that 65 passengers and crew were put at risk when the Sydney-bound flight took off outside approved CAA flying times from the resort.

Planes must depart no later than 30 minutes before twilight from the airport, which is surrounded by mountains and has no radar or runway lights.

However, Mr Tapper said he noted "with some alarm" emotive comment from people "that should know better commenting about the difficulty operating in and out of Queenstown".

"Queenstown Airport is in a mountainous terrain environment where special procedures have been developed in order to provide safe operations.

"Air crew have special training before they can regularly operate to and from here.

"Once crews are trained and cognisant of the conditions, people are no more in danger than at any other place."

Qantas corporate communication adviser Jessica Gadiel said Qantas pilots needed to meet "a host" of criteria, including successful completion of ground-based study, simulator practice and meeting regulatory criteria.

To be eligible for selection as a Qantas captain, pilots required at least 3150 hours' aeronautical experience "as a starting point".

"To fly into Queenstown, you would then be among the most senior captains on Qantas' Boeing 737 fleet, so would have accumulated any number of hours in addition to that."

Ms Gadiel said any pilot who normally operated into Queenstown would need to meet the airline's "standard recency requirements" if they were to take leave for longer than 35 days.

The requirements normally included demonstrating at least one take-off and landing under the supervision of an accredited trainer, but the requirements could vary depending on the length of absence from flying, she said.

Mr Tapper said in recent years the Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC) and Airways Corporation, in conjunction with new procedural requirements from CAA, had instituted "significant improvements" to the way "heavy operations" were conducted at Queenstown, simultaneously enhancing safety.

Those included wider runways with regular resurfacing; the construction of the runway end safety area; better taxiway and apron facilities; the introduction of Required Navigation Performance (RNP) technology on approaches and departures; and the new MLAT aircraft reporting system.

"I am a multi-engine instrument-rated pilot myself, and can assure you that instrument flight approaches into such places such as Sondrestrom Fiord in Greenland, landing in an Arctic blizzard in zero/zero conditions in Iceland and in turbulent monsoon conditions in Rangoon were a lot more demanding than those usually experienced here.

"One extra blessing here is that at least our controllers speak good English.

"All my years of flying off remote mountain airstrips in Fiordland, especially in marginal weather, were much more demanding, challenging and difficult than Queenstown and wind shear was quite a normal occurrence.

"We just trained and adapted to the environment."