DIS Airwing Director calls his Pilots to Order

  • The pilots cannot operate on board radar for use in bad weather
  • Two DISS aircraft grounded because such incompetence

GAZETTE REPORTERS

Two months ago, the Director Airwing at the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS), Amos Radiposo, convened a meeting with pilots on a matter of serious safety concerns after two aircraft of the secret service were struck by lightning.

It was 29 March 2022 and Radiposo gave the pilots a stern warning that he would take action against some of them because they were incompetent. DIS owns two PC12 aircraft. Both are currently grounded after they were struck by lightning.

“It had come to his attention that his pilots were not competent in use of on board radars for avoidance of thunderstorms,” a source said.

He reportedly told the meeting that he was a Delegated Flight Examiner and a Type Rating Examiner who had flown around the world as both a military and civilian pilot. In fact, the current crew of the presidential jet, Global Express, were trained by him as a Hercules C130 instructor.

Radiposo has over 30,000 flying hours and is the only pilot qualified to be Pilot in Command of the PC24 because he has a senior Airline Transport Pilot Licence.

According to a confidential source, at the meeting he also expressed disappointment in the Director General Peter Magosi’s delay in approving his training of pilots in the PC24. “It had come to his attention that unlike at the Botswana Defence Force (BDF), there were no internal regulations and policies on flight procedures at DIS,” said the source.

“In fact, he has conducted an investigation into one of the Chief Pilots (name known to this publication) after he had flown the PC24 into controlled airspace out of Orapa without communicating with Air Traffic Control and this resulted in a near-miss with a passenger aircraft in the airspace at the time.”

The investigation was sanctioned by the Civil Aviation Authority Botswana but it is alleged that it was abruptly halted by the DIS.