The Tribune

A REPORT by a US scientific agency has highlighted a number of failings of the nation’s aviation sector and its meteorological equipment, not to mention the glaring lack of any of the mandatory medical services required at each and every Bahamian Out Island aerodrome following a series of visits to Nassau and our Family Island airports.

The report, carried out by US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was provided to the government alongside representatives from NOAA and FAA’s Aviation Weather Centre some months ago.

The survey examined automatic weather observing systems (AWOS) at airports in the country and weather radars that are installed – but found no data is being produced because of a lack of power or communication issues.

In fact, during visits to airports in April and May, NCAR reported “maintenance was found to be lacking at most sites, and proper calibration and servicing schedules did not appear to have been implemented”.

At Marsh Harbour, the system was inoperable because of a lack of power since Hurricane Dorian, and the site was overgrown. One pilot said over the past five years he was never able to get a weather report from the airport.

The Governor’s Harbour site was partly overgrown and the solar charger was dangling below the panel itself.

At George Town in Exuma, the AWOS was inoperable and was removed for construction. A new AWOS is planned for purchase, but the timeline is unknown. The control tower nor the fire house has been rebuilt but a temporary facility has a system called a Davis weather station. While those sensors were also said to be dirty, which can dramatically affect observations, that information must be radioed to pilots.

At Cat Island, the runway lights sat in a pile in the bush and the AWOS was overgrown.

At each and every aerodrome, NCAR reported issues with a combination of power, communication, calibration, maintenance and servicing – with some sensors being inoperable after no maintenance for more than six months.

As NCAR said: “Pilots depend on this information for safety when they plan a flight to a specific airport.” The report went on to say “there is not a single radar (of the five that were purchased in The Bahamas) working properly with the data quality expected from such radars. Earlier in the year, two radars were working and sending data to the Department of Meteorology, however the quality of this data is questionable”.

A maintenance schedule with sufficient staffing, tools and spare parts was recommended, including both a power system and backup generator, as well as radar infrastructure and hardware.

Radar calibration procedures were also said to be “insufficient to ensure high quality data” and that there should be calibration checks twice a year.

The report said that the Department of Meteorology admitted it did not have the resources to manage the infrastructure – and NCAR warned that the degradation “will continue, making these critical assets unusable”. The report added: “The sooner this programme is implemented, the less equipment will need to be replaced.”

NCAR noted that many of the services for crash search and rescue and dedicated medical capacity for international civil aviation were non-existent or severely lacking at every family island airport - noting that The Bahamas, unlike 186 other nations, was not charging airlines for the provision of such services. This will invariably result in those facilities being downgraded in accordance with Chicago convention.