Overwater charter to Honiara: documents, rafts and permissions
You are the pilot of a Beech B200 King Air on a Part 135 charter from Port Moresby (AYPY) to Honiara (AGGH), two crew and eight passengers, block time 3:00, ETD 14:00 PNG time, ETA 19:40 Honiara time. For about 1 h 30 min the route is over water beyond gliding distance from land.
Three things surface during preparation. (1) The original certificate of registration went to CASA PNG three weeks ago with a change-of-owner application and has not come back; the office holds a certified copy. (2) Of the two life rafts, the 8-person raft's equipment pack and survival ELT are out of date; the 10-person raft is in date. (3) The Honiara handler emails that no prior permission or notification has been lodged for this charter, and that customs and immigration close at 17:00 - the flight cannot be cleared after that without pre-arranged overtime.
1. Can you depart with a certified copy of the certificate of registration? What else must be on board?
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Not with a certified copy. The certificate of registration is one of the documents that must be carried on board for an international flight, and a certified copy is not the certificate. Departing without it risks refusal of clearance, detention at Honiara, and enforcement action in PNG.
Documents to confirm before departure:
- certificate of registration (original) and certificate of airworthiness;
- maintenance release current for the flight;
- flight manual and the operator's exposition, or the approved extracts;
- crew licences and medical certificates;
- MEL if applicable, and the technical log;
- radio station licence and the insurance certificate covering the flight;
- passenger manifest and general declaration for customs.
Practical options: chase CASA PNG for the original, or ask for a duplicate to be issued and couriered; otherwise delay until it is in hand. The commercial cost of a delay is small compared with an aircraft grounded in a foreign state. If the document is genuinely lost, start the replacement process before the flight is planned, not at the airport.
2. Assess the life raft situation and set out the options.
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There are two separate problems: the out-of-date raft and the capacity arithmetic.
- Every item of emergency equipment must be serviceable and within its inspection or battery life. The 8-person raft is not: an expired equipment pack and survival ELT means it cannot be counted. A raft with expired pyrotechnics or a dead ELT is not a raft you can plan on.
- That leaves the 10-person raft for 10 occupants - exactly the complement, with no redundancy and nothing spare if the raft is damaged or lost. Planning on a single raft with zero margin for a 1 h 30 min overwater leg is poor practice even where the arithmetic works.
Options:
- Have the 8-person raft inspected, repacked and its ELT battery replaced before departure - the best answer.
- Substitute a serviceable raft.
- Re-route to remain within gliding distance of land throughout, so rafts are not required and life jackets for all occupants suffice. This costs time and fuel, and must be a genuine routing assessment, not a line drawn optimistically on a chart.
- Cancel.
Life jackets for every occupant, and a serviceable ELT, are required regardless.
3. What do you do about the missing prior permission and the customs hours?
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Both must be resolved before departure; neither is a paperwork detail.
Prior permission or notification: a non-scheduled commercial flight into a foreign state is normally subject to that state's prior permission or notification requirements, published in its AIP (GEN 1.2). Without it the flight may be refused entry and the passengers may not be permitted to land. The handler must lodge it and give you a confirmation reference.
Customs and immigration: arriving at 19:40 when the port closes at 17:00 means the passengers cannot be processed. Overtime attendance must be arranged and confirmed in writing, with a reference, before departure.
So the correct decision at 14:00 is to hold the departure, or re-plan to arrive before 17:00 local; if neither is possible today, move the flight. The alternative is a three-hour flight ending with the aircraft parked at Honiara, passengers on board and nobody to clear them - a diplomatic and commercial problem and a breach of the arrival requirements. Add to the pre-flight checklist: ATS flight plan, general declaration, manifest, and confirmation numbers for both the permission and the overtime.