(I got this from

http://www.reportermagazin.com/rep136/0008.htm

a magazine in Serbian)


Here is my translation:

“Even a blind chicken finds a way to peck a seed” people say when they want to say that things of importance should not be left to chance. At JAT it seems, they do not think this way, as the airline’s DC-10 flew for four months to China without radar. Explaining that this is a piece of equipment necessary to ensure normal functioning of the flight, especially if meteorological conditions are not ideal (for example, so the plane doesn’t fly into hailstorm cloud) our sources comment that that “luckily a catastrophe never happened”. At JAT this “ minus of equipment” was unclearly and incompletely presented in the planes log. Encase of an emergency the plane would have had to land immediately at the nearest airport, which does not remove the possibility of an accident.

It is up to the proper authorities to now find out who was responsible for this sloppiness, but also to check whose goal it was to fly to Beijing, no matter what. Was it simply a matter of bringing Chinese travelers to JAT’s Belgrade hub where they would continue travelling on, or were Chinese migrants just a cover for removing foreign currency and gold from Yugoslavia? Because, throughout all the four months of the summer, at Airport Belgrade something was always being loaded on to planes.

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(original Serbian text)

Do Kine naslepo
Da i ćorava koka neko zrno nađe kažu ljudi kad hoće da kažu na to da se važne stvari ne smeju prepustiti slučaju. U JAT-u izgleda ne misle tako, pa je avion DC 10 čak četiri meseca leteo bez radara za Kinu. Objašnjavajući da je reč o uređaju neophodnom za normalno funkcionisanje leta, pogotovo ako vremenski uslovi nisu idealni (da avion, na primer, ne uleti u gradonosni oblak) sagovornici "Reportera" komentarišu da se "srećom nije desila nikakva katastrofa". U JAT-u su ovaj "manjak opreme" na listama o spremnosti aviona za let prikazivali nemuštim i nedorečenim konstatacijama. Da je, kojim slučajem, došlo do problema avion bi morao hitno sletati na najbliži aerodrom što ne isključuje ni mogućnost nesreće.
Na nadležnim inspekcijskim organima je da sada pronađu odgovorne za ovaj javašluk ali i da provere kome je to bilo u cilju da po svaku cenu leti za Peking: da li je u pitanju bilo samo poštovanje dogovorene dinamike dovoženja Kineza za Srbiju (koja im je usputna stanica za Evropu) ili su migranti iz Azije samo pokriće za iznošenje zlata i deviza. Jer, tokom sva četiri letnja meseca na Aerodromu "Beograd" se stalno nešto tovarilo u avione.




This sounds very scarry. I really do not know how dangerous it is to fly with no weather radar but I am sure safety is greatly compromised. Could any of you experts (pilots) on this forum please explain just how dangerous this is? I also can't help but wonder who was responsible for this. It is sad to see that a once good airline has sunk to such a low.

What is your view on the whole thing?