WIX Archives
Re: High cost of Canandian MIAs
Posted by Cees Broere on Wed Oct 02, 2002 02:58:53 AM
In reply top High cost of Canandian MIAs posted by Doug on Tue Oct 01, 2002 07:18:20 PM
: If that is how the Dutch now feel
Doug,
Don't worry. This is not how the Dutch feel, on the contrary the Dutch in general are very much in favour of these recoveries. The reaction of the visitors in our museum are selfexplanatory.
Don't forget our country has suffered for five years under German occupation and any Allied aircraft was considered a friend and that feeling is still very strong today!
It's the Dutch gouvernment and local authorities who do not want to spend lots of money for these activities despite having signed the Geneva convention. It all very plain and simple: money. They are more interested in building houses etc.
Problem is that when a recovery finally is started, the Dutch AF use one of three "specialized" firms, actually nothing more than building contractors who want to earn more money by recovery aircraft as well. With the fear of radiation, asbestos, the strict environmental laws etc nowadays, these companies smell a profit and if you have a look around a site where the Dutch AF is recovering an aircraft wreck, you can see rows of vans of commercial companies specializing in radiation (ping ping), removal of asbestos (ping ping) making sure no pollution is caused (more ping ping) and what makes me very angry is the local authorities charging an amount of about a third of the entire budget of the recovery for permits (even more bloody ping ping).
This way the costs are kept extremely high, making other local Municipalities even more apprehensive to spend such an amount for recovering wrecks with missing crewmembers in their area etc. The Domino effect you may call it.
On the other hand the four largest private organisation who are actively involved with the research into these crashes are not allowed to recover these wrecks. But, they do have vastly more knowledge than the AF as well as having proved that with sponsoring the costs can be brought down to only 25% of the normal costs. But try to make that clear to the Dutch Gouvernment and the British one as well!
If you think I am repeating myself over and over again you are correct. Do I mind? No, certainly not.
Cees