national

SAN denies requests to make public flight log

LA PRENSA

confidential:San officials rebuffed La Prensa’s requests to publish flight logs pertaining to the downed SAN-100.1094504

The Servicio Aéreo Nacional (SAN) refused requests to publish the flight log of the ill-fated SAN-100 helicopter. Nor will the public be made privy to the register of irregularities and malfunctions suffered by the aircraft between Jan. 1, 2007 to the day before its tragic crash into a Calidonia warehouse on May 29.

SAN officials also denied access to internal administrative notes concerning the helicopter and its technical history.

The only internal information that has come to light was the report made by former SAN-100 pilot Alexis Camarena on Feb. 8, 2007, who warned against using the aircraft to transport dignitaries after hydraulic malfunctions forced him to make an emergency landing in the province of Veraguas.

Yesterday, SAN director Rigoberto Gordon rebuffed two requests for access to information to documentation regarding the SAN-100 aircraft. The refusal arrived just three days before the deadline established by transparency laws. La Prensa submitted those requests Aug. 28.

The flight log contains vital information about the operational history of the helicopter. “The government has had the opportunity to be transparent with the public in respect to the investigation into the tragedy, and refuses to make known the full reality of what happened,” said La Prensa president Fernando Berguido.

The Ejecutivo also rejected petitions to disclose the SAN aircraft reports, considering the information is “confidential.”

According to government officials who supported the refusal, the data represent part of a judicial process and, therefore, only the parties involved in official investigations are permitted access to those reports.

“Panamanians have died in an official aircraft of the state and, therefore, we are all part of this process,” argued Berguido.

Incidentally, the SAN-110 helicopter reportedly had to make an emergency landing on Wednesday in a paddock in the district of Chepo.