Air Namibia ‘bypasses’ pilot licensing rules

By: JANA-MARI SMITH

PRESSURE by a senior manager of Air Namibia to falsify information for a South African to get a local flying licence led to the sudden resignation of a flight instructor at the national airline.

Ralph Brammer, official trainer and certified Directorate of Civil Aviation (DCA) examiner, handed in his resignation this week after persistent pressure from Head of Training and Standards at Air Namibia, Alois Nyandoro, to falsify information on a DCA form to get the necessary certification for the SA citizen to fly Air Namibia’s domestic Beechcraft 1900 fleet.  
Sources have confirmed that Cebile Mndawe, a South African citizen, was employed by Air Namibia during the last 2009 intake.
Air Namibia applied for the validation certificate from DCA as required, in order to obtain permission for her to fly in Namibia.
Air Namibia’s General Manager Human Resources, Theo Namases, denied that the airline ever attempted to “bypass proper procedures and regulations”.
She said that the “system has waterproof checks and balances, with the Directorate of Civil Aviation acting as the watchdog”.
However, according to confidential informants, the DCA initially granted Mndawe the papers necessary to fly in Namibia but withdrew the validation when they were notified that Mndawe was not in possession of a valid South African pilot’s licence, a strict requirement when applying for the Namibian licence.
Furthermore, the DCA heard that Mndawe’s flying skills were “sub-standard” and that she would need to undergo additional practical flight examinations before she would be permitted to fly in Namibia.
Mndawe, before joining Air Namibia was employed with SA Express, but “she did not pass her type conversion training required by the airline, and we then redeployed her into air operations” – a desk job, the public relations department of SA Express confirmed yesterday.
When it was discovered that Mndawe was not in possession of a valid SA flying licence, the DCA withdrew her validation certificate and requested that she renew her South African pilot’s licence.
She was also required to re-do the practical flying examination before they would consider granting her permission to fly in Namibia.


Internally, it was recommen-ded that a review board should be convened to evaluate Mndawe’s performance in order to decide whether she should undergo additional training or otherwise be dismissed, sources claim.
The review board was not held, however, for unknown reasons, and sources claim that senior management of Air Namibia approached the DCA and asked for an explanation for the withdrawal of Mndawe’s Namibian flying certification.
They were apparently again informed that Mndawe would need to get her South African pilot’s licence renewed and that she must undergo a practical flying examination.
Last week, Nyandoro allegedly instructed the senior DCA-approved examiner, Brammer, to transfer information from an unrelated form onto the DCA form, which would have created the impression that Mndawe had completed the required practical flight test as requested by the DCA.
The Namibian was reliably informed that Nyandoro insisted that the practical flight examination could be skipped and told Brammer to copy the initial recommendations for Mndawe’s employment onto the DCA form.
One of the reasons allegedly advanced by Nyandoro to backdate the practical flying test results, and ignore the direct instructions from the DCA to complete a new flying test, was because it would apparently be too expensive for Air Namibia to repeat the test.
Nyandoro also allegedly insisted that the DCA was willing to accept the outdated, and invalid, practical flight test results.
In reaction to the pressure from his senior, Brammer this week resigned from Air Namibia, and sources say that he was unwilling to become involved in questionable practices and procedures used to employ people at Air Namibia. Brammer could not be reached for comment.
Another source yesterday confirmed that had Brammer agreed with the request from Nyandoro, it would have been deemed “highly illegal and it wouldn’t have been approved by the DCA”.

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