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| Sunday, 19 December 2004 |
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Security |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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SLAF plays it safe by Anton Nonis The gradually escalating violent acts by the LTTE, including the killings of intelligence personnel and civilians, had led the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) to think of whether it was safe to venture into LTTE controlled areas any longer. It had been the practice, for a long time now, to shuttle Air Force planes into areas under the control of the LTTE when providing air transportation to members of the SLMM and the LTTE as well as on various missions. However, under the present context, the SLAF is more worried on the safety of their aircraft have given serious thought to avoid possible disaster. Air Marshal, Donald Perera told the `Sunday Observer' that the issue had been taken up with the Defence Ministry officials as to the most appropriate procedure that should be taken at this crucial stage. SLMM spokesman, Oskar Solnas said that they are peace facilitators and that they cannot guarantee the safety of the planes. The Air Force too, admitted that it was not possible to accurately predict how safe their aircrafts will be during such flights. The Air Chief said, it will be treated on a `case by case' basis as decided by the Peace Secretariat. The same action plan is also applicable when requests are made to travel to airports in Colombo. He further said, the Air Force will carry out instructions given to them by the Defence authorities. At present, the Air Force does three flights, viz. training, operational and commercial out of which the first two are free of charge. Air travel to members of SLMM and the LTTE come under the category of `operational flights' and provided at no cost to them. The Air Force may use, either helicopters or the fixed-wing type aircrafts for the flights, depending on the possibility of landing the respective aircrafts. However, in most cases, helicopters are used as the operational costs tend to be lower than that for the fixed-wing type aircrafts. Discussions with the Defence authorities on this matter are still to be finalised. |
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