
Long-time Dominican commercial airline pilot Francisco Diaz writes in Diario Libre about a new non-profit that brings together Dominicans working as pilots abroad to promote improvements in local aviation and ensure keeping to the international best practices. The association is named the Asociación Dominicana de Aviación General (ADAG). Diaz has been spearheading efforts by local pilots to foster improvements to keep the Dominican Republic in the FAA Category 1, especially now that the country is the regional leader in tourism in the Caribbean and only second to Mexico in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Members of the new organization are captains of airplanes in major commercial airlines and even aerospace engineers working in NASA and companies such as Virgin Galactic.
In the Diario Libre contribution, he urges the local authorities to take advantage of this new resource. He commended that the new authorities at the Dominican Institute of Civil Aviation (IDAC) are now open to more transparency in aviation practices to improve the local aviation sector.
Pilot Diaz writes: “We must change our paradigm; operational safety has a cost, and its foundation is transparency and teamwork. This change must start at the top and trickle down through the entire organization, all the way to the newest pilot student. Only then can we escape the statistics and avoid repeating the mistakes others have learned the hard way – through accidents and bloodshed. At the end of the day, we all want national aviation to grow, but we want it to grow safely and reliably.”
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
Francisco Diaz X account
30 January 2025