Chaos After Helicopter Crash in Ghana Highlights “Katanomics” Theory
A helicopter crash on the 6th of August 2025 has thrown Ghana into a state of deep mourning. The deaths of the two Cabinet Ministers, a deputy national security boss, and two former government officials have hit the ruling party especially hard. Losing three officers trained to handle VIP tasks in one incident has left the Ghanaian air force, on their part, seriously reeling.
Beyond the devastating tragedy itself, events at the crash site, especially on the date of the incident, provoked considerable alarm and wide debate. Something akin to a free for all ensued. Politicians, townspeople, area farmers, and all sorts seemed to have trooped into the forest where the crash appeared well ahead of official first respondents.
It was quite bizarre watching large streams of people moving in and out of the site with seeming abandon, some carrying debris from the site to take home in full view of some security personnel. The site was not contained. No access control was implemented. Townspeople and area farmers with no training, protective clothing, and specialised equipment seemed to have driven the search and rescue process for many hours after the crash was discovered.
The smattering of security officials and disaster management professionals seemed much too thin to dictate the nature and pace of the surveying, reconnaissance, retrieval, and related efforts. Some of these professionals appeared as ill-equipped and as ill-trained as the locals. Several political and municipal officials and area inhabitants were seen combing through the crash site without gloves, masks, or even the most basic tools for careful site handling.
When, finally, some security and disaster response crews showed up, many did not have harnesses, thermal-resistant containers and bags, helmets, descenders, stretchers, extrication devices, medevac equipment, field laboratory equipment, winches, radiation sensing and handling equipment, etc. etc.
Source: T-ISS
The haphazard and uncoordinated search, rescue, and accident investigation preparation spectacle was streamed throughout the day on some social media sites, while video clips and snippets saturated chat messaging channels.
Even to the untrained eye, it was clear that no risk management principles could be discerned at all. Below, I have provided an extract of a matrix from a UAE manual that illustrates the risk factors for which mitigation and controls were required in a crash site of that nature.
The international standards setter in all matters of aviation safety is ICAO. The ICAO document Cir 315 outlines similar protective measures for crash site actors.
Beyond personnel safety, evidence preservation is a vital component of the post-Search & Rescue (SAR) phase of the national response. By allowing so much debris and wreckage to be carted off by townspeople and other inhabitants of the area, the faithful reconstruction of the accident scene is now effectively impossible.
Is this a standards issue?
Despite these blatant gaps in process, a debate has arisen as to whether one can point to any ideal framework against which how Ghana performed in its response to the incident can be benchmarked.
Some commentators have questioned whether any such benchmarking framework can be valid. Some have insisted that “sovereignty” renders all international standards in this regard null and void. Others say that because the aircraft (Harbin Z-9EH helicopter) involved is of military provenance, international and local standards accepted in civil aviation do not apply. Yet more observers dismiss the technological measures that could have sped up the process of identifying and containing the crash site.
Lessons must be learnt
Without clarity about what went wrong, it would be difficult to piece together the right lessons for the future.
In this brief essay, I hope to clarify some misconceptions that should hopefully clear the path to a reasonable consensus about the requirements for a sound SAR process in Ghana.
I also hope to establish that such a consensus is, properly speaking, a matter of sound policymaking. Applying the emerging theory of “katanomics”, I will then show that the failings of the SAR system is inherent in Ghana’s current incapacity to enforce policy accountability in multiple contexts.
What are the key local and international standards implicated by this incident?
In Ghana, the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Directives (2018) contain clear rules about how national Search & Rescue (SAR) activities should be conducted. The GCAA is not shy to acknowledge that these rules and procedures emanate from the International Aeronautical & Maritime Seach & Rescue (IAMSAR) manual.
The said IAMSAR manual is very clear about the critical requirement of aligning military and civil procedures in Search & Rescue matters.
It also contains many useful provisions about the use of effective technological means such as emergency locators, transmitters, and beacons. As well as interoperability with global satellite tracking systems, such as COSPAS-SARSAT, to speed up the accurate detection of crash sites.
Following the search and rescue phase, the subsequent accident investigation process is covered by equally stringent standards, encoded in national law. Act 1028 grants the ordinary responsibility of investigating aircraft accidents and serious incidents to a dedicated national institution called the Aircraft Accident & Incident Investigation & Prevention Bureau (AIB). Further clarity of the AIB’s remit is provided by LI 2483, the main compendium of regulations.
However, that role is, in the first instance, limited to civilian aircraft. State-owned aircraft, such as those used by the military, police, customs, and the fire service are not automatically investigated by this body. An investigation of the crash of a military helicopter, for instance, by the AIB must be specifically requested by the Minister responsible for Aviation (which today would be the current Minister of Transport).
However, there are standard Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), as detailed in the AIB investigation manual, between the AIB and all the state institutions, including the military, that would normally own aircraft. Such MOUs are pursuant to IAMSAR provision 1.5.6, which suggests the creation of a National Search & Rescue Coordinating Committee (SARCC).
In fact, the most obvious challenge that was amply evident on August 6th was the poor lack of coordination among NADMO (the national disaster management organisation), the military, the police, the fire service, and relevant municipal authorities. What is shocking, of course, is that the GCAA manual for Search & Rescue activities literally assumes such coordination and alignment.
Ghana’s practice of passing an avalanche of laws and regulations and sprouting institutions like the AIB without tightening the policy layers that ensure synergy and without creating the right accountability mechanisms to incentivise implementation are definitely the primary features of any katanomic democracy.
The Civil – Military Juncture
To re-emphasise the point, it is assumed as a matter of self-evident rationale that aircraft accident investigations would normally require close collaboration between the civil and military authorities.
The confusion, lack of coordination, and seeming lack of official discipline at the crash site reflects the inability of the military to transmit their requirements through the other agencies that arrived several hours after the crash site had been overwhelmed by untrained persons.
Had coordination been well established and rehearsed, the NADMO, police, fire service, and municipal personnel would have taken some of the important steps that the military respondents and investigators themselves would have been required to do under military doctrines.
Yet, Ghana has not been wanting in ICAO-sponsored efforts to deepen and streamline the collaboration between the civilian and military authorities as far as Search and Rescue is concerned.
For example, during the workshop that was held on 29th April 2021 to validate the Regional & State Civil Military Cooperation Plan of Action under the aegis of ICAO, participants concluded that:
“States [must] establish Civil / Military Cooperation Committees, develop Civil/Military Manual and Standard Operating Procedures and a Memoranda of Cooperation (MOC) by 30 June 2021.”
It was also agreed that:
“All States are expected to: a) establish a Civil / Military Cooperation Committee; b) develop Civil/Military Manual and Standard Operating Procedures; c) signed Memoranda of Cooperation among agencies (as applicable); and d) plan Civil / Military Programme of Activities for 2021/2022”.
The question is: has Ghana undertaken these steps that it covenanted to do at the meeting?
The issues go way back
It is not as if the military is ignorant about the urgency of these steps.
Three years before the workshop, Navy strategists had seriously lamented the danger of Ghana continuing to lack “accepted guidelines” in Civil – Military coordination in Search & Rescue activities. Their verdict of the prevailing situation was that:
“In the absence of accepted guidelines, SAR [Search & Rescue] collaboration between Ghana Navy and other agencies particularly GMA is poor.”
To back up this opinion, the authors described a telling incident:
“Though this exercise was reported to be successful, discussions with organizers and participants revealed several challenges with interagency collaboration. Mainly, differences in communication equipment and lack of clarity in the limit of roles were some stated challenges. Some agency representative sought to perform roles meant for other agency representatives. The Crisis Response Exercise was described as good but would be inadequate in enhancing collaboration between the Navy and other agencies. Again, an SOP giving guidance on ways of collaboration between SAR agencies would resolve this challenge.”
At no point did the authors express any reservation about the military adopting IAMSAR protocols or dismissing them as merely theoretical or too civilian in orientation.
Rather, the authors proposed as follows:
“The SOP would also consider regional and international SAR mechanisms for collaboration as shown in IAMSAR manuals. The possibility of multiple agencies seeking to perform a particular role because it gives the leadership of SAR mechanism or gives access to more national resources needs to be carefully considered. The criteria for assigning roles could look at the traditional and constitutional mandated roles of agencies.”
Once again, the urgent need for the National Search & Rescue Plan to be formally adopted and executed to ensure absolute clarity in the event of an incident, like what we saw on August 6th, about which agency did what and how.
The detailed policy statement wrapped up with a number of vital recommendations including the creation of a national Standards Operating Procedures document based on the national SAR plan and a joint civil-military rescue coordination center.
What is even more fascinating is that as far back as 2000, as Moses Beick-Baffour notes, the policy being recommended by the Navy Strategists already existed in principle:
“Under the Africa-Indian Ocean Region Air Navigation Plan requires Ghana to maintain a Regional Co-ordination Centre (RCC) in Accra. In this context, a SAR organisation has been established at the Airforce Headquarters, with the Armed Forces and Police required to provide personnel and equipment for any operations, while the Director of the Civil Aviation is the liaison with other international organisations on SAR (Search & Rescue) matters. Under the IMO/ICAO arrangements as laid out in the International Aeronautical and Maritime SAR Manual (IAMSAR), with the Accra Region aviation SAR Plan, it can be said that Ghana has a part of the set-up for the joint SAR.”
In effect, instead of “national learning” leading to continuous improvement, the joint civil-military coordination framework for Search & Rescue according to international standards (IAMSAR) deteriorated between 2000 and 2018 such that by 2021, Ghana was now promising to set it up all over again.
Evident on August 6th was the fact that the problems complained about by Beick-Baffour in 2000 have seen almost zero improvement in over 25 years. Hear him:
“It is also plagued with problems like lack of trained personnel, shortage of up-to-date equipment, lack of participation and co-ordination between other relevant agencies.”
Why is national learning so difficult in Ghana?
This is where the katanomics theory I have recently been promoting can help.
In 2007, the Comprehensive Regional Implementation Plan for Aviation Safety in Africa (AFI Plan) was adopted under the aegis of ICAO, the global standards setter for aviation safety.
It was perceived that air accidents were escalating in the Africa region. Even though 2007 itself was a year of relatively few aviation accidents in Africa, the dramatic crash of Kenyan Airways flight 507 killing all 114 people on board and dramatically boosted the profile of aviation safety. Furthermore, the preceding decade had been one that saw a highly elevated incidence of accidents.
There was thus heightened political interest in improving aviation safety. The Africa Civil Aviation Authority (ACAA) was launched in the same year specifically with a mandate to improve aviation safety.
In the katanomic model, “politics” is defined by the WHATs. The desires, hopes, fears, aspirations that bubble inside a democratic society as to what must be done. “Policy”, on the other hand, is HOW to do the things that emerge as desirables through the various negotiations, elite consensuses, mass agitations, and public performances of social decision-making.
Because of the specialised and technical nature of policy, it is normally a much smaller subset of the population that pursues any public goal from the political ideation phase through to the policy design stage.
This creates a dynamic tension between political accountability, exacted on the broad national platform, and policy accountability, only demandable on a subsidiary level where a far smaller proportion of the population participates.
Unless a society develops mechanisms for the synchronisation of the instruments of the two types of accountability, it becomes extremely difficult for a society to develop policy stamina, even where there is political will.
Policy measures are thus developed and implemented in a far more haphazard and disorganised fashion than one would imagine given the technocratic context involved.
The absence of sizable audiences, constituencies, and communities adequately equipped and committed to the policy agenda often means that policy performance (how well policy is being designed and implemented) is often not politicised enough, lowering the stakes of getting policy execution right.
Thus, even though there has been a schedule of eight major programs under the regional Aviation Safety Plan since 2016 covering areas like Search and Rescue (SAR), Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) peer review, Accident Investigation (AIG), and the Fundamentals of Safety Oversight (FSO), in all of which Ghana has been an enthusiastic participant, the shallowness of the policy communities devoted to aviation and the lack of effective interaction points between policy debate and high-stakes masses-politics have led to a situation where there is very limited incentive to push forward critical policy goals.
Goals such as the National Search & Rescue Plan, a rehearsal schedule for the plan, SOPs for civil-military coordination, and basic activation doctrines for crash site risk and safety management. This is after 25 years of the first policy measure towards this goal being fully implemented. Talk about the lack of policy stamina and the failure of national learning.
All this is despite Ghana being one of the ICAO Western & Central African Office (WACAF) countries that have received resources from the African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) RAF19805 PASTA-CO ECOWAS SAR project to drive the maturity of their National Search & Rescue Plans; ensure manuals enforcement; and set minimal standards in respect of: “legislation, decree, plan, manuals, operational procedures, minimum equipment list, agreements, memoranda of understanding, and SAR exercises.”
Military Paranoia
One of the bizarre arguments that has arisen in the wake of the helicopter crash is the claim that somehow the military should not be held to such post-incident standards at all. As we have demonstrated above, that has never been the doctrinal position of the Ghana Armed Forces. All the policy trajectories have assumed joint civil-military processes.
At any rate, which of these sensible standards such as the existence of a joint national committee, rehearsals and drills, minimum equipment lists, interoperability between communication equipment used by all respondents (whether civil or military), crash site containment, effective access control, and utilisation of all national resources in accident investigations are hostile or anathema to military discipline and ethos?
If anything at all, the military should have even stronger criteria. For example, any crash of military aircraft introduces the potential risk of unexploded ordnance and other weapons that elevate the risk level higher than in civilian contexts.
At any rate, the strategy to intermingle civil and military assets for effective search and rescue and other aviation safety goals in Ghana is a matter of national policy.
Consider how the World Bank saw things when making $8.3 million available to support the policy during the program to redevelop the Takoradi Airport to better handle civilian air traffic:
“The military and civilian facilities will exist separately but in close proximity to each other, similar to the arrangement between the Ghana Air Force and GCAA at the Kokota International Airport (KIA) in Accra. The government’s objective is to have the military cede air traffic control to the GCAA, who will provide service to the military and civilian operations alike.”
This policy mindset has an extensive historical precedent in the country. As one author notes, Tamale Airport was initially under the sole control of the military. That situation was changed by the Acheampong-led NRC government in 1974 when the military failed to fix broken radio beacon and other navigational equipment due to a lack of resources. The civil aviation authorities, always better resourced due to their receipt of regulatory fees, were brought in to provide manpower, technical capacity, and other resources. The practice of Ghana’s military being dependent on civilian infrastructure has such a longstanding pedigree that any notion of the country segregating standards in the airspace management domain is simply naïve.
Even in the United States, one of the countries with the most paranoid military mindset in the world due to the country’s extremely elevated threat level, accepted the doctrine of joint civilian-military airspace management after the 9/11 terrorist incident. The policy-result was the:
“[E]stablishment of a unified network and the creation of various documents such as Doc 10088 “Military-Civil Aviation Cooperation Manual”, Doc 9763 “Asia, General Plan for Air Traffic Services in the Pacific Region”, Doc 9854 “Global Air Traffic Management Operation Concert”, and Circular 330 AN/189 “Civil/Military Cooperation in Air Traffic Management”.”
Such a unified framework, obviously, also applies to the maritime environment. Another policy area suffering from a lack of momentum and stamina is the activation of the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan. There is absolutely no way that such a plan can be executed without tight coordination across the naval and civil marine sectors, based on joint standards.
The Electronic & Digital (ICT) Dimensions
It is clear that if the rotorcraft that crashed in the Obuasi area had possessed a functional crash-triggered emergency locator or beacon that had been deployed in accordance with the COSPAS-SARSAT standard, a message would have been relayed immediately it crashed with valuable location-related data. This is why the IAMSAR standards Ghana has domesticated into its national Search & Rescue regime incorporates the COSPAS-SARSAT framework.
A tight coordination net would have ensured that within minutes, the international MCC node in Spain would have alerted the Accra Rescue Coordination Center (RCC), which would then have immediately engaged the Airforce Ops Room and all other national Search and Rescue designated institutions to deploy trained and briefed incident commanders and other respondents to take control of the crash site and prepare for medical evacuation, should they find survivors, as well as accident investigations.
There is obvious sensitivity surrounding any military intelligence related to a downed military craft being passed through civilian intermediaries to the air force. This is hardly the showstopper some think it is, though.
First, the GHF-631 Harbin Z-9EH helicopter was serving a VVIP role with more civilians on board than military personnel. This was a classic civil-military entanglement situation. The national security secretariat in Ghana tilts heavily towards civilian composition and ultimate oversight of the military in Ghana is in civilian hands.
Second, a COPSAT-SARSAT message needs not necessarily reveal any intelligence. Mission intent and all other operational info can be masked. The only thing that matters is the existence of a communication protocol such that when the message is relayed from Gran Canaria (Spain) to Accra, the GCAA-run RCC would forward to the proper recipients based on local deciphering rules. In fact, the Data Distribution Plan standard offers a flexible approach in customising the data security requirements to meet national needs.
Third, ICAO has standards dealing with almost every conceivable national security concern in this and similar contexts. There is the Air Traffic Management Security Manual (Doc 9985), special provisions for cybersecurity (including social engineering aspects) and additional air traffic control security modules in the Doc 9854 operational concept manual. There is, furthermore, a restricted version of the aviation security manual (doc 8973). Even encrypted signals, to guarantee absolute confidentiality, can be passed on if necessary in any joint civil-military coordination setup.
Fourth, Ghana needs not use COSPAS-SARSAT or any system with an overseas node if it believes its national security needs can never be met in such a situation despite all the various safeguards. So-called “personal” locators and beacons can be installed on rotorcrafts and other aerial vehicles. They would broadcast a signal on a non-satellite regime frequency. A local scanning protocol, such as mounting scanners on a flight-following craft dispatched once an aircraft has been determined to be lost to run reconnaissance across the flight path while scouting for the signals.
Other Related Policy Issues
In terms of dispatching military personnel to the site following detection of the crash site, this requirement in a proper national Search & Rescue framework is easily balanced by virtue of the fact that any other agencies that reach the site first would have received the same training and sufficient equipment to begin containment according to a national standard.
There is, however, a separate but connected policy debate that must be had at the appropriate time. It concerns the validity of the logic of dotting Ghana with so-called forward operating bases owned by the air force when air assets are so minimal. In addition to the Bui Air Tactical Command, which lacks the full complement of a flying squadron, the military is also setting up another base near Bamboi in the Savannah region.
What is the point of an airforce base without flight capabilities? Why not simply create an air force module within the extensive military infrastructure in Kumasi? Surely, all the better, then, to ensure rapid airlifts and the effective positioning of abseiling and rappelling units into highly difficult terrain (such as forested acreage)? The failure to ensure site security that was so visible on August 6th would surely have been minimised in such a regime?
An effective national Search, Rescue, & Accident Investigation program would also have ensured that the historical patterns of cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders (collectively and colloquially called “black boxes”) having missing or corrupted data as witnessed in the May 2014 VRAL helicopter crash incident and the 2023 AWA forced landing event would have been properly investigated and a regime implemented for strict enforcement of black box maintenance and operational standards.
The AIB which has direct experience of this problem would naturally be represented in any joint national Search & Rescue board and ready to apply its experience and knowledge. One can only hope that such a problem would not manifest in the August 6th crash incident investigation.
It goes without saying that a more rigorous policy-debate culture would also help when Ghana considers what the tragic Z-9 incident means for its air force fleet. It should be emphasised that the helicopter that crashed is one of Ghana’s four newest helicopters, purchased with a Chinese oil-backed loan in 2015.
Even in the wealthy US military, the average age of aircraft exceeds 28 years. The average age of the most widely deployed helicopter model, the Lockheed Martin-built Sikorsky Black Hawk, is 18 years. Aged platforms notwithstanding, US fleet replenishment programs maintain strategic perspective. Whatever the causes of the Z-9EH crash, aircraft age is unlikely to be one.
The Ghana Air Force already has a replenishment plan that is based on its strategic plan. However, this accident is not linked to a fleet shortage problem. It would be best not to confuse the issues. Until the investigation establishes the root and proximate causes of the crash, policy analysis should focus on the problems clearly exposed in the search and rescue regime.
Conclusion
This short essay set out to show that Ghana has committed to a policy of joint military-civilian standards in search, rescue, and accident investigations in the event of an aircraft crash or collision, regardless of whether civil or military assets are involved.
The problem has been the lack of policy stamina due to a katanomic order in which, despite the political accountability that democracy fosters, there is a serious lack of accountability for policy performance.
The cabinet must be induced by citizen pressure to complete the stunted cycle of policy maturity in the aviation safety sector. The search and rescue framework, electronic traceability of distressed aircraft (relying, for instance, on the emergent GADSS regime), and the tighter coordination of aviation accident investigations as policy goals will only be delivered if there is a dedicated and sizable cohort of citizens that can follow the issues and reignite their political significance at strategic moments. This is the case for all other policy issues in Ghana.
It was in 2002 when another helicopter crash incident in the Atiwa area exposed serious gaps in Ghana’s Search and Rescue architecture. It is surprising that then as now Ghana is still relying on untrained SAR personnel to respond to crash incidents and even to sift through wreckage. This shocking lack of national learning must end.
