By NEILL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A former Bahamian aviation minister yesterday revealed he never felt industry regulators had “cracked the nut” in preventing and deterring unauthorised commercial flights by pilots commonly known as ‘hackers’.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, who held ministerial responsibility for the industry under the Minnis administration, told Tribune Business he was never satisfied that the Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas (CAAB) had deployed sufficient personnel, technology and other resources to get a grip on the known ‘hacking’ challenges at Lynden Pindling International Airport’s (LPIA) general aviation segment.

Besides supplying enough qualified inspection and other supervisory personnel to verify whether pilots and their aircraft have the necessary licences, and airworthiness certificates, to enable them to offer commercial flights, he added that Civil Aviation - during his 2017-2021 term - had also been working to facilitate the electronic filing of flight plans and passenger manifests.

Mr D’Aguilar told this newspaper these would have acted as “control points” to combat so-called ‘hacking’. Aviation industry sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, yesterday confirmed the ability to file electronic flight plans exists and they would be “surprised” if any operators are still relying on manual paperwork and faxes to the control.

And they added that Civil Aviation has, within the last two years, intensified efforts to tackle unauthorised commercial flights and those that operate them via an education-type campaign designed to bring the latter into the fold as opposed to “beating them with a stick”. However, they conceded that hacking remains “rampant” within the Bahamian aviation industry.

Mr D’Aguilar spoke out in the wake of Friday’s fatal Andros crash that killed all ten persons aboard a Flamingo Air plane, acknowledged the gaps in aviation regulation and oversight during his four-and-a-half years as aviation minister. There is nothing yet to suggest that the downed aircraft was engaged in hacking or an unauthorised commercial flight.

“I must say I wasn’t happy. I didn’t feel that, in Civil Aviation, we had cracked the nut of allowing hacking to continue,” he told Tribune Business. “I didn’t feel there was sufficient safety and oversight on flights going out of general aviation. I’m not sure what has transpired since I left office, but there was clearly a problem. Pilots were getting around the regulations by saying they were not transporting passengers for commercial purposes; that it was friends and family members.

“I wasn’t 100 percent sure that nut had been cracked. What was required in my opinion, and I felt Civil Aviation should have done this, was to set up people at general aviation to verify that the pilots transporting people have the necessary licences, and the aircraft has the necessary paperwork and certificates to make those flights.

“Some of these hackers were taking the mickey. They were making hundreds of flights per year and, in every instance, were getting away with it by saying they were taking just their family, just their friends. We could also have controlled these folks by making them file a flight plan. That would have been another control point. If that aircraft and pilot did not have sufficient paperwork to allow them to conduct commercial flights, there’d be a control point at the tower.”

But aviation industry contacts, while confirming that the electronic submission of flight plans is now mandatory, yesterday told this newspaper that Civil Aviation under its current director-general, Chequita Johnson, has done more in the past two years than it ever has previously to address hacking - albeit through “conformity” rather than a crackdown.

“Under the new director-general, she’s the first one I’ve ever seen take a human approach, which is what they need to make changes,” one source said. “She’s done it through community outreach and education. They have been doing things and there has been progress there, but it’s not straightforward as ultimately you have to stop people flying and you have to police it.

“If you ask me whether there have been moves taken to reduce hacking in The Bahamas, I would say yes, but this has been done in effect through conformity rather than a crackdown.” The source said Ms Johnson and other Civil Aviation officials have met with pilots operating from general aviation to “get them to understand” what licences and authorisations they require to offer legitimate commercial flights, the airworthiness standards their planes must meet, and “get them into the fold”.

“Is hacking still rampant? Yes,” the source conceded. “They are making an effort. It’s definitely a challenge because there’s going to be political interference, but over the last year there’s been the greatest effort and most impactful effort that I’ve seen them doing. Rather than beat them with a stick, she’s trying to bring them into the fold.”

Another aviation contact conceded that it is difficult to catch, and prove, unauthorised charters because the passengers themselves will deny paying for a flight thus limiting any evidence of a commercial flight. They added Civil Aviation has also secured an office around 1,000 feet from general aviation and has inspectors posted at LPIA.

Mr D’Aguilar, meanwhile, said there were multiple questions surrounding the Independence Day crash including whether the plane was leased by Flamingo Air to someone else. If it was, he added that the type of lease involved could affect who was responsible for the aircraft’s maintenance, while Civil Aviation should have been provided with details on this arrangement if it existed.

“Civil Aviation is not there to check every single flight,” he added. “There’s a responsibility on the airline companies to abide by the rules. Did they abide by the rules?” The former minister also questioned, given Flamingo Air’s history of safety incidents, if Civil Aviation already possessed sufficient evidence to suspend its air operator certificate (AOC) prior to Friday’s events - which also included a flight to Mayaguana returning to LPIA - or if that provided “the tipping point”.

Mr D’Aguilar said that, given the complexities and safety issues bound-up with aviation regulation, he allowed the officials working under him on the various regulatory bodies to do their jobs without hindrance when minister. “As much as you have politicians sitting over this area, you cannot take away from the fact civil servants who run these departments are trained in these areas and better capable of providing oversight,” he added.

“I’m a laundromat operator. I don’t have the foggiest idea how to provide oversight. While people rise up and want to beat up on politicians, the solution in this sector must come from the professionals. They lead it. Where they may complain is political interference, with the politicians saying they are killing the sector and causing the professionals to step back from what they feel is the necessary solution, but when I was minister I stepped back and let the professionals do what they needed to do.”

As an example, Mr D’Aguilar cited Civil Aviation’s decision to stop Sky Bahamas from operating under his watch even though “there was a lot of pressure on me” to intervene. The former minister said he also oversaw a package of aviation legislative reforms that split the Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority (AAIA) from Civil Aviation to eliminate the potential “conflict” caused by both reporting to the same minister when the former’s probes may be critical of the latter.