[Peetwo]

Hooded Canary goes CAMO - 

Looking more like he was doing an audition for the Village People (minus the head gear) or perhaps modelling as the Barbie Doll Ken; this was how HC appeared before the cameras yesterday in the aftermath of the tragic (RIP - ) C130 Hercules fire bomber crash near Cooma...  



Ref: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/comp...53uj7.html    

Note that he even has his position in the ATSB embroidered on his shirt -   

So the Hooded 'plastic' Canary has yet again re-transformed himself, ironically making himself more conspicuous by parading in army khaki fatigues - UDB!   

What makes it worse is that HC is again masquerading as an 'expert' transport safety investigator - excerpt from SMH article:   

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said it could take another day to ensure the site is safe to work on.



Vision shows what little is left of the C-130 Hercules that crashed with three US firefighters inside.CREDIT:NINE NEWS

"We have some specific knowledge of this airframe and we will be looking to secure any hazards in relation to aviation fuel, magnesium wheels, any of the unexploded pressurised canisters such as oxygen bottles," he said.

"We are ... much into the evidence gathering phase of this investigation, we won’t be speculating (on what happened)," he said. "It’s a particularly complicated site at the moment, it’s an active bushfire area."

He said the firefighters died in "the selfless pursuit of the prevention of loss of life and property".



Asked whether all C-130 aircraft should be grounded, he said there was nothing at this stage to suggest it was a systemic fault and it was "a decision for companies or the regulators".

  

Personally after the Essendon DFO,  PelAir and MH370 cover-ups etc..etc, if I was Coulson Aviation I would be requesting that the NTSB &/or the TSBC be involved in this investigation at the earliest possible convenience...

I would also be requesting that the Hooded Canary play no further part in anything to do with this investigation, including being the PR spokesperson looking for international kudos and recognition while applying a very effective smokescreen for the dismal performances for both the Smoko/Mick Mack Govt and the ATSB under his watch...

Okay back to thread ToRs - 

I note that the Rossair cover-up inquiry has again been put back for completion to the first quarter of 2020: https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv...-2017-057/

(Note how the webpage was updated 2 days before Xmas -  )

It is also rumoured that the DIPs have again (like with PelAir cover-up Mark II - see Pel-Air re-investigation rumour mill and [b]Ghost who walks & talks beyond Reason [/b]) been threatened/bullied with possible criminal sanctions if they even contemplate leaking parts of the final report DRAFT contents - 

References: https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance...ccurrences & https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviati...t_full.pdf

Recommendations
22. Any findings in the report which the audit team feel warrant Executive accountability to remedy should be included as a recommendation.

Recommendation no.1
Paragraph 2.8
The ATSB implement strategies that address the decline in the timely completion of short investigations.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau response: Agreed.

Recommendation no.2
Paragraph 2.18
The ATSB report on the efficiency with which it uses resources in undertaking investigations.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau response: Agreed.

Recommendation no.3
Paragraph 3.5
The ATSB establish more realistic targets for investigation timeframes addressing both calendar and investigator (effort) days.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau response: Agreed.

Recommendation no.4
Paragraph 3.21
The ATSB continue to progress actions that it has recently commenced to benchmark its investigation performance against relevant international comparators and use the results to identify strategies to improve its performance.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau response: Agreed.

---

AIG:

Fully implement the ATSB’s action plan to ensure that all accident and incident investigation reports are completed within the established timelines.

Next rumour floating around is that ever since being slapped with wet lettuce audit reports from both the ANAO & ICAO (see above); the Hooded Canary has been desperate to clear the decks of an ever growing list of uncompleted O&O (overdue and obfuscated) topcover investigations.

Apparently one of the ways HC is discretely doing this is by falling back on section 21 (2) & (3) of the TSI Act 2003:

(2)  The ATSB may discontinue an investigation at any time.

(3)  The ATSB must, within 28 days of discontinuing an investigation, make publicly available, by electronic or other means, a statement setting out the reasons for discontinuing the investigation.

After reviewing the Aviation Accident Investigation pages there is a number of these 'discontinued' notices (with apparently more on the way). 

e.g: 

Discontinuation notice
[b]Published 8 January 2020[/b]

Section 21 (2) of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 (TSI Act) empowers the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to discontinue an investigation into a transport safety matter at any time. Section 21 (3) of the TSI Act requires the ATSB to publish a statement setting out the reasons for discontinuing an investigation.

On 23 September 2016, the ATSB commenced an investigation into the descent below segment minimum safe altitude involving Airbus A330-343X, 9M-XXI, near Gold Coast Airport, Queensland, on 11 September 2016.

The aircraft was cleared to conduct a RNAV-Z (GNSS) instrument approach to runway 14 (Figure 1) at Gold Coast Airport in visual meteorological conditions. During the approach, the aircraft was observed to descend below the 1,700 ft segment minimum safe altitude between the instrument approach’s intermediate fix (OOLNI) and a position 2.5 NM from the final approach fix (OOLNF).

Figure 1: The Gold Coast RNAV-Z (GNSS) Rwy 14 non-precision instrument approach

Source: Jeppesen

However these notices are not isolated to AAIs but are also coming in the much smaller accumulation of rail investigations which the ATSB is now nationally responsible for - e.g:

Discontinuation notice


Section 21 (2) of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 (TSI Act) empowers the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to discontinue an investigation into a transport safety matter at any time. Section 21 (3) of the TSI Act requires the ATSB to publish a statement setting out the reasons for discontinuing an investigation.

On 25 June 2017, the ATSB commenced an investigation into a near collision between a Track Maintenance Vehicle (TMV) NK83 and freight train 4190N due to a signal irregularity at Islington Junction, NSW.

At approximately 1020 (AEST) on 25 May 2017, a TMV NK83 travelling to Port Waratah was stopped by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) train control at Signal IJ25. The crew in the rear locomotive of NK83 noticed that although they were foul of the Up main, the signals were clear for rail traffic to pass through. Soon after this, freight train 4190N was seen operating on the Up main headed towards NK83. The crew in the rear locomotive of NK83 made an urgent request to move NK83 forward to avoid a being struck by 4190N. NK83 moved forward and avoided being struck by 4190N.

ATSB’s preliminary evidence collection revealed:

• The signaling system at Islington junction was upgraded in 2007. The upgrade of the interlocking system did not include a risk control which previously prevented conflicting train movements at the junction.
  
  
• ARTC have since changed the interlocking system to manage the risk of conflicting movements at Islington Junction.
  
  
• Since the incident, ARTC have inspected similar crossings and confirmed that the missed interlocking risk control was isolated to the crossing at Islington Junction.
  

Following ARTC’s confirmation that the incident was isolated to the crossing at Islington Junction, the ATSB considered it was unlikely that further ATSB investigation would identify any systemic safety issues. As such, the ATSB has discontinued this investigation.

  
Although only a rumour at this stage, with not much factual evidence to back it up, AP at this point in time has put me on notice to simply monitor the ATSB webpages for future DNs. However with the current crop of notified DNs I do wonder if there is not already a particular pattern (modus operandi) for investigations that the Hooded Canary is using (at his discretion and/or direction) to discontinue an investigation?

For example this discontinued investigation - AI-2015-063 - have some very real identified systemic safety risk issues surrounding busy secondary (originally GAAP) airports, which I would have thought were important issues to document and properly identify for greater good of safe operations at these important secondary city airports?

However this was HC's justification for discontinuing:

Further steps

The ATSB did not identify any ongoing safety issues with this analysis. However, the ATSB will brief both the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and Airservices Australia on the detailed analysis to help with future airspace planning.

So the findings were important enough to brief CASA and ASA on the detailed analysis but not important enough to disseminate to industry in the form of a fully documented final report analysis...  

Hmm - my 2 bob's worth...I suspect the real issue here was that the "AI" research investigation was approaching an uncomfortable 5 year anniversary

Another noticeable trend with AAI DN's is the fact that there is a number of DNs that involve Asian carrier incidents (like the one above). Now is this HC discretion on these investigations because the potential for political fallout is less (ie protection racket for the Minister) or because there is some sort of favouritism for these particular airline operators...

MTF? - Definitely...P2