Last wednesday a twin engine plane "Piper Cheyenne" (YV1165) crashed near the Charallave airport south of the capital Caracas. Three persons are reported to have died in the accident, they had taken off from San Cristóbal (Táchira state) early in the afternoon around 17:30 hours.

This is the 18th plane accident so far this year, with a total victim count wihch reaches 77 persons.

The situation of the Venezuelan civil aviation continues to deteriorate and I keep wondering whether aviation accidents are now more frequent in Venezuela and if so, what's the cause behind the phenomenon.

Judging by the experience related by Daniel Lara Farías from the blog "La vida desde aquí" a good deal of the blame falls on the shoulder of aeronautic authorities more interested in pleasing the ideological predilections of their bosses, inside a militarized and obsolete organization, where loyalty to the revolution pays more than the capacity to act properly.

In any case none of this should surprise us. It is in the nature of bureaucratic organizations the lack of responsiveness to the needs of their costumers, since they are isolated from failure and bankruptcy by the blanket of taxes. No matter how inept is the state aeronautic authority (INAC or Instituto Nacional de Aeronáutica Civil), it can never go broke and be disbanded by the lack of costumers, since wherever you fly you are forced by law to use their services and, furthermore they will always have the State to provide them with funds extorted from the hapless taxpayers, in order to continue wasting precious resources and human lives, which is the worst in this case.

The story would be entirely different were the aviation sector completely private, with multiple regulatory organizations competing for the favor of costumers. In this scenario ineptness and complacency such as that shown by the Venezuelan authorities would be fatal, from a business point of view, for themselves and not only for the poor accident victims and their families.

 Venezuela, Economics