A former Medavia captain has filed a judicial protest in the First Hall of the Civil Court against Transport Malta for failing to launch an inquiry about an incident in which he was involved over Libya when flying a Malta-registered aircraft.

The case had led to him losing his job. Sinclair Portelli noted in his protest that he had been employed with Medavia for several years and was a captain. The company operates flights over Libyan territory, transporting employees and merchandise to and from several places in Libya.

On 9 March last year, Mr Portelli was flying over Mabruk in Libya – a regular route which had been used by Medavia for several years – when suddenly two Airbus planes of the El Afriqija airline appeared taking off from a runway close to Mabruk. Libyan leader Muammar el Gaddafi was said to have been on one of these two planes.

The distance between the Airbus jets and Mr Portelli’s aircraft was minimal according to aviation parameters, so much so that when the Medavia plane landed, Libyan security service agents interrogated the Maltese captain and he was immediately informed he was no longer authorised to fly planes over the Libyan Jamahiriya territory.

Investigations carried out by Medavia concluded that there had been no breach of rules by the captain and that the two airbus planes’ sudden take-off had caused the incident.

Mr Portelli, who never had problems carrying out his duties before, returned to Malta and kept waiting for results of inquiries and investigations into the incident. He continued to receive his full salary from Medavia for a year while investigations by Libyan authorities were to be concluded.

On 26 February this year, Mr Portelli was informed by the Medavia human resources manager that every attempt with Libya for him to be allowed to fly over the territory had failed and the company had to terminate his employment with effect from the following month. The reason for the employment termination was classified as a cause of “force majeure”.

Transport Malta had been informed of the incident by means of a letter from Mr Portelli asking for the results of an inquiry it was obliged to carry out since Medavia aircraft are registered in Malta. However, he was never informed of any outcome or whether investigations had taken place and consequently he does not know exactly what led to his termination of employment.

It was in his primary interest to know the result of the necessary inquiry by Maltese authorities and if this had taken place, the protest said.

Lawyer David Gatt, who signed the protest, added that his client was holding Transport Malta chairman Mark Portelli responsible for any damages he sustained as a consequence of Transport Malta’s failure to launch an investigation.

The authority has 10 days to inform Mr Portelli of the outcome of its investigation and he reserved the right to take further action against the authority.