In a news coverage by Kaniva News concerning the problems with Lulutai Airlines, and more particularly the accident related to the Saab 34 airplane, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has reacted with threats of legal action claiming the story was prefabricated and misleading.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has also attacked Kaniva for calling on the Prime Minister and members of the Lulutai Airlines Board to resign. The ministry has called on the news organization to apologize and rescind their story otherwise they will take legal action.
But Kaniva has responded to the Ministry of Civil Aviation with a strong refusal to apologize, standing by their story, saying that it is “the ministry’s comments that are misleading.”
Kaniva says that at no time have they called on the Prime Minister or the Board to resign, nor have attributed any blame to them. The report was that “concerned citizens have called on the Prime Minister and members of the Lulutai Board to resign.”
“It is quite normal for citizens in democracies to express strong views when state-owned assets are involved,” Kaniva responded. “This may also involve demanding that those at senior management and political level take responsibility for such issues. Equally, it is perfectly normal for the media in a democracy to report on robust debate about matters of public interest. This is part of the function of a free press in a democracy.”
The preliminary report into the event which damaged the Lulutai Airline’s Saab 340 plane did not reveal any findings into the cause of the accident.
The Ministry’s complaints included a claim that Kaniva reported the pilots deliberately act to disable the flight data recorder with the intention to hide information relating to the accident. According to Kaniva this was a baseless claim as they did not report any such thing.
“A preliminary report from the investigation into the crash organized by the Ministry for Infrastructure’s Civil Aviation Department said the flight data recorder did not contain any information about the aircraft’s progress before the crash.”
“It said the recorder indicated that it last worked properly on July 11, 2023.”
“There were signs that the recorder may have been deliberately disabled.”
“A large amount of unchanging data, recorded after the last correctly recorded flight was consistent with data compression when the FDR was operating, however there was no input data being provided to it. This was considered to have occurred because the circuit breaker on the flight data acquisition unit (FDAU) had either popped (activated due to excessive current) or was pulled. A locking collar was observed on the circuit breaker, indicating that a deliberate action to disable the system had been taken. There was no maintenance record of the FDAU having become unserviceable, or a collar being fitted to the circuit breaker.”
– This is part of the report about the flight data recorder (FDR) or black box by the Tongan Civil Aviation Chief Investigator, page 9.
The preliminary report gives no opinion as to who might be responsible. Kaniva News denies it made such claims. Insofar as the crew of the flight are concerned, the preliminary report concentrates on describing their actions during the flight and after landing. Otherwise Kaniva cited a number of sources describing the function of the recorder and its importance in investigations.
The technical issues surrounding Lulutai Airlines have been a popular subject of public dialogue on social media. As the only airline providing domestic flight services within the kingdom, there have been many complaints due to schedule interruptions because of technical failures of planes.
A tourism business operator told this reporter that unreliability of domestic flight schedules has affected tourist travels to the outer islands.
Lulutai Airlines however is not only dealing with criticism concerning the technical wellbeing of its planes, but there are also those who raise questions on the airlines ownership. It is a government-owned airline but it is not part of Public Enterprises like all other government-owned businesses. There are also still questions lingering as to how Mr. Poasi Tei who was unseated from Parliament for bribery was appointed to be CEO for Lulutai not long after.
