Skopje, 24 January 2024 (MIA) — The Civil Aviation Agency has drafted its preliminary report from the emergency audit following the incident in the national air navigation service provider M-NAV, the agency's director Tomislav Tuntev told MIA, adding that the CAA was also pursuing sanctions against companies and individuals.

The CAA report, on the basis of 14 findings, has prescribed 11 mandatory measures as part a corrective plan that needs be drawn up jointly by the CAA auditors and M-NAV representatives. The auditors will then start their regular supervision of the activities' implementation, Tuntev said.

Also, a special report will be prepared for the government, which had previously requested to be informed by the CAA of its findings regarding M-NAV.

According to Tuntev, the CAA has discovered serious violations of legal provisions had been made in the company. Security procedures in M-NAV had not been followed. Neither was M-NAV's security program nor several provisions of the National Air Traffic Control Program and the Aviation Law.

"Someone decided to diseregard procedures and do whatever they wanted," Tuntev said. "This led to the unauthorized or illegal entry of persons into official premises."

He said the Jan. 4 intruders, however, did not enter the air traffic control room where air traffic controllers communicated with pilots.

But auditors found "a series of other omissions that had probably been tolerated for a long period of time in the facility itself, such as not keeping a door closed that should have been closed."

In addition to the corrective plan to be developed with M-NAV, to prevent such incidents from happening in the future, Tuntev said one option was to install a metal detector and an X-ray device at the entrance door. This would heighten the security level to approximately the level of airport security, he added.

CAA has also proposed additional training for the outsourced security agency staff as well as M-NAV's own security staff.

So far, Tuntev noted, M-NAV has always accepted their suggestions but nevertheless, they had to comply with the mandatory measures and the sanctions.

The CAA director said the outsourced security agancy had submitted all documents saying they had the necessary training and the agreement was for them to secure the first parking entrance gate arm.

The second parking entrance gate arm was to be secured by M-NAV staff, but instead of the previous 15-16 security guards that used to do this, only a couple remained on the job.

"But we cannot solve interpersonal relations and interests in M-NAV," Tuntev commented.

Though the incident could have endangered air traffic, the CAA director reiterated his previous statement that it did not have any air traffic control consequences.

He said that in the 16 minutes the incident went on, not a single report of the incident was recorded by any pilot, controller, airport staff or aviation personnel. All aircraft received the standard air navigation services provided by M-NAV, he added.

Tuntev confirmed that any violations of procedures increase the risk of security consequences, but he stressed that there were no such consequences in this case.

"I condemn this event and it should not have happened," Tuntev said, adding: "Our goal is not to cover for someone or declare them guilty or not, there are other authorities for that. We determine the situation, we see what happened regarding international and domestic laws, find out the causes and consequences, and based on that we issue our solutions, recommendations, and sanctions."

The incident at M-NAV on Jan. 4 when several people broke into the facility and attacked staff led to changes in management. The government appointed Hekuran Asani and Milan Korakj directors, replacing Fahrudin Hamidi and Ljube Stamenkovski.

This led to the Trade Union of Air Traffic Controllers to suspend its announced general strike, which it had scheduled because of the unionists' disapproval of the work of M-NAV management.

Also, the Primary Public Prosecutor's Office in Skopje launched an investigation against eight persons suspected to have committed the crime of endangering air traffic safety according to Article 303 Paragraph 2 in connection with Article 22 of the Criminal Code.

The State Labor Inspectorate is also auditing M-NAV. Auditors are looking into complaints from candidates who had applied at the company's recent job opportunity announcement. mr/