Hong Kong Airlines' 'deviations' a concern, says Anthony Cheung

Secretary for Transport and Housing Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung has expressed concern that Hong Kong Airlines faced seven "deviations from regulations" recently, saying that "even one incident is too many".

He also said that the Civil Aviation Department had demanded an explanation from the airline on why the deviations happened. The department has also demanded improvements from the airline.

The Civil Aviation Department confirmed that the budget airline experienced seven deviations from regulations from August to mid-September, but a spokeswoman said that none of the deviations posed safety threats, as many were only "technical infringements".

Apple Daily reported yesterday that the budget airline faced seven aviation "incidents" from August to mid-September. On August 8, the airline's pilot on board a flight to Bangkok mistook the runway clearance of another plane as its own. The plane crossed the red stop line but the situation was immediately rectified by the air traffic controllers in Chek Lap Kok.

On 16 September, another pilot on board a plane to Nanjing was originally instructed to climb to 9,000 feet.

The plane was later instructed not to do so because there was conflicting traffic at that level. But the pilot did not observe the instruction and was observed to be at the higher level.

"What I think is that even one incident is too many. [Airlines] should follow the rules strictly as this is about aviation safety," Cheung said after attending a road safety event.

"Hong Kong has adopted very strict international air traffic regulations…any deviation from the regulations needs to be reported to the Civil Aviation Department."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Concern from top over HK Airlines incidents

Source:  http://www.scmp.com