Year: 2018

The Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA), through its Flight Safety Department, will be hosting a symposium on Wednesday, December 5, 2018, at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, beginning at 8:30 a.m.

It will target foreign operators, contracted ground handlers, and maintenance providers in an effort to advise them of the surveillance and certification responsibilities of the JCAA.

“The symposium will be an outreach to all stakeholders where we will share the perspective of the JCAA, our roles, and responsibilities so that our main priority of safety and security can be maintained at the highest level,” Deputy Director General of Regulatory Affairs, Rohan Campbell, told JIS News.

Meanwhile, the Manager, of Airworthiness Oversight at the JCAA, Gary Carr, informed us that the regulatory requirements for foreign operators are among the topics to be discussed, as breaches of these requirements, have been observed in the past by the JCAA.

Mr. Campbell noted that the event should positively impact stakeholders’ operations, so they can operate successfully and grow.

The JCAA said that through the symposium, it hopes to improve its relationship with stakeholders by creating awareness of the JCAA’s role in its surveillance of foreign operators, which should result in seamless inspections at aerodromes and reduce the possibility of delays and service interruptions.

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As a part of its mandate to ensure the safe and orderly development of civil aviation in the country, the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA) will be hosting an Airworthiness Seminar on Thursday, October 25.

Speaking with JIS News, JCAA Director General, Nari Williams-Singh, explained that the Authority’s Flight Safety Division will be using the event to address issues that the regulatory body has identified through its surveillance and oversight activities.

“We provide some support and guidance to the general aviation community, being the small air operators in the community, and this will be the first of many workshops and seminars that are to come,” he said.

“This one, in particular, has to do with the management of aircraft records, which is an important component of aircraft maintenance requirements. The records need to be accurate and maintained in a particular way,” he added.

Mr. Williams-Singh said the seminar would be comprehensive and would be one way of providing a forum for JCAA Flight Safety Inspectors to interface with industry stakeholders.

For his part, the Manager for Airworthiness Oversight in the JCAA’s Flight Safety Division, Gary Carr, said the event is a training workshop targeting management-level staff as well as persons tasked with the safe and legal release of aircraft to service.

“The topics are targeted at personnel in records management and those who are certified to deal with procedures. It is as detailed as how to do it, when to do it, where it should be recorded; the material that is needed in terms of ink to keep it, because they need to preserve the records,” he explained.

Mr. Carr pointed out that there may be a need to refer to the records for at least two years or longer after the aircraft has been removed from service and that the operators will be trained in the long-term preservation of their documents.

According to the manager, aviation is a highly regulated field, and all requirements must be adhered to. “Our regulations are developed from international standards. So you’ll find that they are similar or almost identical to what exists in other countries,” he explained.

Additionally, he said it is the Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) that are contained in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) annexes that are used the develop the Civil Aviation Act and Regulations, and that Annex Six refers to the airworthiness of aircraft. It covers airworthiness requirements, one of which is the management of the aircraft records.

Mr. Carr said the sessions will be interactive, and participants are encouraged to ask questions, bring up any challenges or issues, and make recommendations.

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The Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA) has commenced parallel operations at the Kingston Air Traffic Control Centre (KATCC).

The operations, which commenced in May, are taking place at the newly renovated KATCC, and the interim facility that has been in use since last September.

The engagement is being undertaken with a view to fully transition the operations to the upgraded facility.

This was disclosed by JCAA Director General, Nari Williams-Singh, during an interview with JIS News.

He noted that the operations had to be relocated following last September’s lightning strike at the KATCC.

“We had, at that time, moved the operations to another facility, which was, in fact, a training facility that we were using to facilitate upgrades to our systems. We have now transitioned back to the recently renovated Kingston Air Traffic Control Centre and… we are about to fully transition there with all new equipment (and) a very modern integrated system,” he added.

The Director General said the renovation was a part of the JCAA’s ongoing modernisation programme, under which the air navigation services infrastructure is being upgraded. The training facility, he indicated, will remain a part of the contingency system.

Mr. Williams-Singh pointed out that the KATCC provides overflight services for airplanes traversing the country’s airspace without landing.

The Director General said the Flight Information Region (FIR) that the KATCC is responsible for “is many times larger than Jamaica’s land mass, and (as such) we have a significant number of overflights.”

He pointed out that air traffic controllers at the KATCC coordinate the movement of all aircraft throughout Jamaica’s FIR and adjoining regions.

Mr. Williams-Singh said the airport towers, on the other hand, deal with aircraft that land at and take off from Jamaica’s airports, adding that there is coordination between the KATCC and the control towers at both locations.

This is done through three radar stations located at Norman Manley and Sangster International Airports and Mount Denham in Manchester.

Mr. Williams-Singh further explained that there are some functions that can be taken over by aerodrome controllers at the airports and that full contingency would be addressed in the next phase of the modernisation programme’s implementation. He assured, however, that the renovations and upgrades have better positioned the JCAA to respond to any issue regarding the provision of air traffic control services.

The original article can be found here