Hovercraft held in suspension by pay allowance question
PA Auckland While the Civil Aviation Divison, politicians, and Air New Zealand yesterday defended the standard of the Auckland Airport rescue and safety equipment, which lacked its rescue hovercraft on Saturday, it emerged that the craft could have been used after the Friendship crash if a pay allowance question had been settled. The Auckland Airport rescue hovercraft, which has been up on blocks for a year under repair, is now the subject of a pay determination to get it going again. The payment has been sought by the rescue firemen who run the hovercraft for the job of fitting rubber fingers around the machine skirt, as well as the rubber keel fitting. “There is no dispute,” said Mr A. Webster, a spokesman for the Public Service Association, which
has been connected with negotiations between the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Transport, which employs the men.
“The rescue firemen have indicated that they would do the job on a one-off basis —it was left to the commission to examine the question of a suitable payment,” Mr Webster said.
The repairs were originally set for completion in September, after a thorough overhaul in the Air New Zealand engineering base at Mangere, but did not finish until the end of last year because some parts were delayed.
The question of payments for the rubber-fit-ting work was first raised long before the repairs had finished. Notification of a suitable payment was now awaited. Mr Webster said that the rescue firemen had been concerned that they
might be blamed for the hovercraft’s being inoperable. “The crash firemen have been very concerned that all the equipment should be at readiness. They also say that the rubber craft used were at the scene as quickly as the hovercraft would have been.” Mr J. K. Ward, the regional Director of Civil Aviation, said that a meeting on the allowance question would be held next week. He said that the hovercraft's radar was not in use at present,
Salvage teams last evening winched the tail and the aft section of the Friendship’s fuselage from the harbour on to shore after using inflatable bags to float them. An Air New Zealand spokesman said that only the wings and cockpit section were left to be salvaged.
Airport safety defended, Page_3
Hovercraft held in suspension by pay allowance question
Press, 20 February 1979, Page 1
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