“The spectacle of traffic lights and social media posts is damaging.” New criticism from aviation for the Minister of Health

The approach of the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, had a “devastating psychological impact on the families of those on board” and it contrasted with the atmosphere inside the aircraft which was “a very calm one”, accused Marius Popescu, president of the Association of Romanian Airlines, in an intervention on Digi24.

It was the second public outing by ACAR in which the Minister of Health is criticized for announcing that he had “summoned at the Ministry of Health a crisis cell with the main emergency hospitals in Bucharest” after the pilot of a HiSky company plane with 186 people on board, which had taken off on Sunday on a flight on the Bucharest-Hurghada route, asked to return urgently to “Henri Coandă” International Airport.

In the post made when the plane was still in the air, Alexandru Rogobete nominated the Ambulance and 6 hospitals in Bucharest prepared to receive the victims. The post was condemned shortly after, on Sunday evening, in a press release from ACAR, which stated that “aviation is not a cancan”, and breaking news type posts are “unacceptable”.

“Unwarranted Panic”

In an intervention on Digi24, on Monday, the president of the association whose members include Romanian airlines such as TAROM, AnimaWings, DAN AIR, HelloJets, FLY LILI, Legend Airlines and Star East Airlines, detailed the criticism that the industry has for the minister.

“To express myself in a purely diplomatic manner, we appreciate the preventive mobilization of the intervention crews, but the transformation of a technical, routine procedure, into a somehow show of traffic lights and posts on social networks is harmful, because when the authorities and politicians rush to list dozens of ambulances, prepared intensive care units, hospitals, before a plane lands, they are already no longer informing, but inducing somehow an unjustified panic”, said Marius Popescu.

“It's not a field of chasing visibility”

He requested that in the future communication should remain the responsibility of the Ministry of Transport, Romatsa or the Romanian Civil Aviation Authority.

“The approach has a devastating psychological impact on the families of those on board, after all, who receive signals of imminent disaster for a situation that, in fact, is in reality under control. And the atmosphere inside the aircraft was a very calm one. There were no people, agitated passengers. Aviation is a field of precision, it is not a field of the rush for visibility,” he said.

“Not a critical emergency“

He also wanted to deny two pieces of information from public communication. The plane did not depressurize, as the minister mentioned, but a sensor on board signaled a possible depressurization. Moreover, he pointed out, the pilot of the plane did not activate the highest degree of alert: “Mayday”.

“It is vital to explain to the public that, from the information we have, on the frequencies between Romatsa and the Bulgarian side, because the plane made its way back from Varna, a PAN-PAN type message was transmitted. In aviation, this is the signal for an emergency situation that requires priority, not a critical emergency. It does not endanger the lives of the passengers, the crew. So we are not talking about a Mayday”, says Popescu.

As the minister explained

Alexandru Rogobete explained that “there were no other certain data” when he was “informed that a plane with 180 passengers on board has depressurized (this is not the expression criticized by ACAR) and is returning to Otopeni”, apart from the fact that “the aircraft must fly over to reduce its weight before landing”.

“My role, as Minister of Health, is not to react after something serious happens. My role is to be prepared before. In a negative scenario, I was talking about the possibility of multiple victims. And multiple victims are not treated on the track. They are treated in hospitals. Hospitals that, at the moment, are operating with an occupancy rate of over 90%. This means organization and coordination in time, not improvisation”, the minister said, on Sunday evening, in a Facebook post.