SAA pilot who nearly stalled plane over the East Rand gets a promotion

South African Airways (SAA) has confirmed one of the pilots who operated the nearly ill-fated vaccine flight to Brussels last year has been put in charge of training at the airline.

Captain Vusi Khumalo assumed the role of the SAA Training Organisation on 1 April.

In February last year, an SAA vaccine collection flight to Brussels near-stalled over the East Rand after take-off. The on-board event is called an alpha floor incident.

Saved by the autopilot

Experts said that the plane could have crashed, had it not been for intervention from the autopilot.

Until now, neither the South African Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa), nor SAA have released a report nor answered questions relating to the alpha floor incident, along with breaking European Union noise abatement regulations on the way home.

This, despite several attempts throughout to get answers. Initially, the crew did not report the incident within the required time frame of 72 hours as stipulated by civil aviation regulations.

It may never have come to light if the aircraft had not alerted engine manufacturer Rolls Royce or aircraft manufacturer Airbus of the incident.

On-board systems automatically alert parties of irregular operations and incidents. It was these two parties who asked questions about the incident.

Corners possibly cut before take-off

At the time, a former SAA pilot who had encountered a similar near-stall on an Airbus A340- 600, told The Citizen that there is a computer glitch on the aircraft and payload weight must be checked manually against load sheets.

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It is a well-known flaw and the pilot said the only way the incident could have occurred was if the preflight checklist, that indicates the problem and its workaround, was not followed.

There were also allegations of training-related waivers for the crew, who were due for mandatory refresher training prior to the flight in question.

Civil aviation confirmed the waivers, but never the exact nature of the free passes.

A head of training with no training experience?

A former SAA pilot told The Citizen in disbelief: “How can Captain Khumalo, with no experience in training, be placed in charge of it?”

The pilot also suggested that Khumalo’s ability must be placed in question after the alpha floor incident and said: “I will never set foot on an SAA flight again.”

Last week, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on SAA Alf Lees said he was astonished at SAA’s move to install Khumalo in a position where he may influence the performance of others.

“I will be challenging Minister [Pravin] Gordhan on the matter and what I consider irresponsible management,” he said.

“It smacks of reward for a transgression that’s still shrouded in mystery.

“Despite the alpha floor incident confirmed by the Sacaa investigation, it was not reported within the required time frame.

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“To make matters worse, the crew of the flight, including Khumalo, apparently refused to participate in a meeting on 16 March last year, during which the incident was to be discussed. They apparently claimed the incident had not happened.”

Despite the acting chief executive at the time, Thomas Kgokolo, promising at various intervals last year to make the incident public, the airline has stayed mum and equally as silent on what the consequences for the operating crew would be.

Kgokolo has since left the airline and board chair John Lamola was appointed as executive chair.

He now runs the airline until the Takatso consortium assumes control.