This is an analysis of systemic risk and regulatory gaps triggered by the scenario of an AirJet Embraer ERJ suffering an onboard fire or post‑landing fire at Kolwezi during a charter operation. I am not reporting a verified accident here. Instead I outline the practical and legal lessons regulators and charter customers should expect to follow if such an event were to occur, and I show how existing international standards would apply to the response and ensuing investigation.

Charter operations fill essential connectivity needs across Africa, but they also concentrate regulatory complexity. Charters are often non‑scheduled services operating under a State issued air operator certificate with widely varying national oversight regimes. The standards for accident notification, investigation and cooperation are set internationally, but the effectiveness of those standards depends entirely on the State of occurrence and the robustness of its safety oversight system.

From an investigator’s and regulator’s standpoint these are the immediate legal and operational questions that must be answered after a charter aircraft fire at a regional field such as Kolwezi:

  • Whose jurisdiction and which accident investigation authority leads the probe. Annex 13 designates the State of Occurrence to lead the technical investigation while entitling the State of Registry, State of the Operator, State of Design and State of Manufacture to participate. Those obligations include preliminary reporting timelines and public reporting expectations. Compliance with these provisions matters if lessons are to be made public and acted upon.

  • Whether the operator held an appropriate, current AOC and whether the AOC’s authorizations matched the flight being conducted. For charters that cross borders or serve government delegations, that question often triggers further scrutiny of wet‑lease paperwork, crew qualifications and insurance. International arrangements such as cooperative oversight and regional audits exist to reduce blind spots, but they rely on active implementation by States and regional bodies.

  • The aerodrome environment and aerodrome NOTAMs. Many runway incidents that lead to secondary events such as gear collapse or fuel system damage trace back to poor runway condition information, displaced thresholds or ongoing resurfacing works that were not properly reflected in operational briefings. The integrity and dissemination of NOTAMs, and the crew’s performance of a stabilized approach into the declared landing distance, are routine focal points in post‑accident work. Operational manuals and OEM performance data must be paired against the actual runway configuration and published restrictions.

  • Fire response and evacuation performance. Regional jets such as Embraer ERJ types have specific evacuation profiles and emergency procedures codified in their operations manuals. Post‑landing fires test the fit between the aircraft’s certified evacuation capability and the airport rescue and firefighting resources available on the ground. Where AFR airports are small, rescue resources are often limited and mutual aid arrangements are unevenly formalized. That gap can determine whether an evacuation is orderly or chaotic.

Regulatory takeaways for Africa’s charter environment

1) Strengthen State Safety Oversight for non‑scheduled operators. Many safety improvement programs in the Africa‑Indian Ocean region are already coordinated through RASG‑AFI and the AFI Plan, but non‑scheduled operators and short‑term charters remain an enforcement challenge. States must explicitly include charters in surveillance programs and ensure that approvals for special flights are supported by verifiable records of maintenance, crew training and operational control. The regional frameworks exist to do this, but implementation must be measurable at the national level.

2) Make charterer due diligence contractual and transparent. Governments and large corporate charterers should be required to demonstrate the AOC status, insurance and oversight history of the carrier they hire. Contractual clauses should mandate evidence of safety management systems and recent surveillance findings. Where governments charter aircraft to transport delegations, they should adopt a minimum vetting checklist and publish the outcomes in enough detail to create accountability.

3) Improve aerodrome risk controls and NOTAM reliability. Displaced thresholds, resurfacing works and temporary runway restrictions create low‑visibility hazards for crews unfamiliar with the field. States and airport operators must publish clear, permanent local aerodrome data and ensure NOTAMs are precise, timely and correlated with published AIP amendments. Crews must be briefed to confirm available landing distance and any displaced thresholds in their performance calculations prior to committing to a landing.

4) Harmonize rescue and firefighting capability metrics with aircraft types that operate there. Regional planners should map the types of aircraft routinely used for charters and ensure that firefighting categories and response times meet the practical risk profile. Where equipment is insufficient, formal mutual aid or private sector arrangements should be mandated for predictable high‑risk flights.

5) Enforce independent, timely investigations and public reporting. Annex 13 prescribes a 30‑day preliminary reporting expectation and a 12‑month target for final reports for major occurrences. States need the legal, technical and financial capacity to meet these timelines or to transparently document progress and findings. Independence of the investigation authority from regulatory capture is essential to produce safety recommendations that are acted upon.

Why this matters to operators and passengers

Charter operations are essential across the continent for mining, humanitarian work and government business. But the convenience of charters cannot substitute for predictable safety oversight. When a fire or other catastrophic secondary event occurs on a regional jet at a small field, the difference between a survivable event and a fatal one is often not the aircraft alone. It is the system around the flight: credible AOC enforcement, accurate aerodrome data, trained rescue services, and an independent investigation that produces corrective action.

Practical next steps for policymakers

  • Require clear AOC verification for any charter contracting with a government or major corporate charterer, and create a published registry of approved charter vendors.
  • Fast track incorporation of short‑term charter surveillance into national safety oversight workplans and report those activities through RASG‑AFI performance frameworks.
  • Mandate minimum ARFF resources for airports that routinely serve jet charters, and establish enforceable mutual aid agreements for adjacent hubs.
  • Commit to Annex 13 timelines for preliminary reporting and make interim public statements whenever a high‑profile flight safety event occurs.

Conclusion

A hypothetical AirJet ERJ fire at Kolwezi is a useful stress test for African charter governance. It would surface predictable gaps: AOC vetting, NOTAM reliability, aerodrome rescue capacity and the capacity of national investigation authorities to produce timely, independent findings. The remedies are also predictable and practical: enforce the oversight obligations States have already accepted under ICAO, require better due diligence from charter buyers, and invest in aerodrome rescue and mutual aid. Those steps reduce risk not only for one operator but across the whole charter ecosystem.

If policymakers treat each high‑profile near miss or accident as a single data point rather than as evidence of a systemic failure to be fixed, the same vulnerabilities will repeat. The law and the standards are in place. What remains is consistent implementation, transparency and accountability.