The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA) decided not to allow experminental planes to fly from the so-called swiss national airpors, namely Basle, Geneva and Zurich. This “temporary” restriction is a consequence of the crash of Captain Hans Georg Schmid.
In its media release, FOCA says that thisis a preventive measure, making no assumptions on the conclusion of the investigation in progress. To me, this sounds like the authority taking good advantage of a sad incident to make general aviation a bit more restricted. When the Airbus 320 crashed in Sao-Paulo, no one had the idea to ground restrict operations of Airbus 320s, or all jets as a class.
One more time, an authority uses an incident to justify new constraints, even before the investigation is finished. What now if the investigation shows that the cause was a medical problem ? Will the restriction be cancelled ?
I will obviously keep an eye on the course of investigation, and will publish here as soon as new information will become available… stay tuned !
Vincent Lambercy is a Swiss private pilot now living in Germany. He holds a private pilot certificate with single-engine, multi-engine and instrument ratings and has logged more than 430 hours of flight.
