TCAA declares Bukoba Airport safe for landing

Dar es Salaam. While the country is still grieving the death of 19 people who died in the Precision Air crash, the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) has assured passengers that the Bukoba Airport is safe for landing.
Speaking to reporters in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) director general Mr Hamza Johari said the accident is a lesson to them and they will ensure it does not happen again.
He said the Bukoba airport has length of 1500 meters long and width of 30 meters, has the capacity to serve flights weighing up to 29 tons.
According to him the Precision Air’s 48-seater 5H-PWF, ATR42-500 that crashed last Sunday, weighed 18.3 tons.

Also Read:Precision Air plane wreckage pulled out of water

"Precision Air started flying the Bukoba routes in 1992, starting with a seven-passenger flight and in 1996 they added another eight-passenger flight with an additional of 11 passengers. In 1998, they came with an 18-passenger plane and in 2008 they started carrying many passenger.”
He added: If the airport of Bukoba Airports was not safe, then we would have a sequence figures of such accident.
Mr Johari said as the regulator of airports in the country, TCAA have to put things right to assure the passengers.
“If we do not put things right, passengers will believe that the airport is not safe, it is our duty to tell them that it is safe, the accident that happened was just a coincidence," said Johari.
TCAA’s remarks comes just two days after various stakeholders in the aviation industry, including pilots and flight engineers, mentioned the Bukoba and Arusha are among airports that give them trouble  during landing and takeoff.
They said the struggle is due to constant change of weather that occurs, as well as the presence of mountains in those areas.