KEY POINTS:
Much of this country's heritage is built on our inimitable, Number-8 wire spirit - a she'll-be-right, can-do attitude that has produced heroes from the unlikeliest of sources.
We're a nation of entrepreneurs and adventurers and, from the time Richard Pearse took to the air in South Canterbury in March 1903 - nine months before the Wright Brothers - we've also become a nation of travellers and flyers. We may live at the bottom of the world, in splendid isolation, but in this day and age of jet travel and cheap fares, we all give lie to the maxim that Kiwis can't fly.
But two shocking events in the aviation industry in the past two weeks have also reminded us of another dictum: everything comes at a price. The unprecedented hijack attempt of an Air New Zealand domestic flight, and a fatal mid-air collision above Paraparaumu have thrown the spotlight on what may seem to the lay person some rather worrying safety flaws in our flying industry.
Both events could have been much more catastrophic - we were incredibly fortunate Flight 2279 wasn't brought down between Blenheim and Christchurch, and the residents of the quiet Paraparaumu cul-de-sac, Dennis Taylor Ave, were lucky to escape injury and death as the wreckage of a helicopter and light plane rained down on their homes and nearby businesses last Sunday.
In a special investigation today, we reveal there have been concerns about Paraparaumu Airport, and other airfields, for some time. One experienced, highly regarded pilot describes flying into Paraparaumu as the equivalent of Russian roulette. Another has spoken of three near-misses involving other aircraft at the airfield - none of which were reported to safety authorities. Sadly and unfortunately, all of these incidents flew under the radar until last weekend's collision.
Or more truthfully, there was no radar at all. Paraparaumu air traffic controllers were scrapped in 1973 and replaced with flight safety information officers. They, in turn, were turfed out of the control tower in 1997 because the Civil Aviation Authority said they weren't needed. Translation: they were too expensive. For 11 years, pilots have been left to fend for themselves - to literally keep an eye out the cockpit window and an ear on the radio channels. Complicating the matter is the variety of different aircraft types, and speeds, buzzing these aerodromes. Helicopters, light planes, scheduled flights, gliders and parachutists all vie for the same piece of airspace - and their numbers are growing. It takes just a moment of carelessness - and there is little doubt that pilot error caused last weekend's collision - to lead to tragedy.
The reinstatement of ground-based controllers at our busiest airfields, as a back-up to the young learner flyers, should now be a priority.
What we don't need, however, is a kneejerk reaction to the attempted hijacking. The Government is set to announce this week what it will do following the case of the Somalian refugee who carried two knives aboard the domestic flight, then tried to redirect the aircraft to Australia. The woman is obviously mentally ill, and the thought that terrorists might target these small commuter-type aircraft is simply laughable - they'd bounce off objects such as Auckland's Sky Tower.
Unlike the air traffic problems, this case was an isolated event. The travelling public do not need any restrictions or more costs imposed on them on these provincial services.
Ultimately, the questions must be: what risk to life and what price a life? The answer is different in both cases. The aviation industry is very clever at blaming the media for focusing on rare, isolated events, accusing it of beating up the facts. The airspace statistics we reveal today, however, show the number of incidents is on the rise. One set of figures shows there were nine "near collisions" in our skies in one six-month period, an extraordinary number.
If the aviation industry doesn't want negative headlines, it needs to face up to the fact that we need tighter air traffic control systems - and that, ultimately, it must pay.
