Jetstar Pacific whistle blower says his actions have proved justified

One of the engineer whistle blowers who made Jetstar Pacific’s flight safety problems public says the inspection conclusions are proof that he made the right decision.

Bernard McCune, who denounced the flight safety problems to the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) and petitioned the Prime Minister, said: “The most important thing is that the inspection conclusion has been made public. Management agencies have confirmed the problems in aircraft maintenance at Jetstar Pacific. This means I told the truth,”

In an interview with a VietNamNet reporter, he acknowledged that he did not expect too much when he made the decision to speak out. Prior to that, he many times petitioned Jetstar Pacific about flight safety problems, but the information was suppressed. He said they considered him foolish and ultimately he was sacked.

In fact, fear of getting sacked kept him quiet for a long time. However, he finally decided to make public the big problems at Jestar Pacific, simply because Jetstar Pacific’s passengers deserved to take safe flights.

Mr McCune said he highly appreciated the seriousness and responsibility of CAAV in dealing with the case, saying that inspectors raised a lot of questions with Jetstar Pacific and himself. “They worked in a serious and cautious manner and they were not hasty in making decisions,” he said.

“The inspectors’ conclusion shows that Vietnam respects the truth and it dared to reveal the violations of enterprises to protect Vietnamese people,” he said

“The most important thing,” he added. “Is that foreigners, who work in Vietnam, now understand that they are respected and their words are listened to.”

Who must take responsibility for the wrongdoings of Jetstar Pacific? Answering the question, raised by VietNamNet, Mr McCune said that one should not charge the engineers or technicians of Jetstar Pacific, who were forced to do wrong. They are just employees who did not want to get sacked.

He stressed that the leadership in charge of flight safety headed by Daniela Masilli, deputy general director in charge of technical issues and deputy technique director Jerry Woods, must take responsibility for the problems. The two have been dismissed. However, he considers the dismissal a light punishment.

When asked if Qantas, the Australian group which is a main shareholder of Jetstar Pacific, knew about the problems in aircraft maintenance at Jetstar Pacific, he said that the group has never answered correspondence sent to them, where he outlined the problems. He believes that the group knew about the problems before it read the official inspectors’ conclusion.

For now Mr McCune said he remains an aviation engineer, therefore, only a return to the profession would make him happy.

“If the new managers of Jetstar Pacific are enthusiastic and they really respect workers, I would be happy to return to work for Jetstar Pacific where I can share my experience with Vietnamese colleagues,” he said.

Tags: Jetstar Pacific, Vietnam aviation