[Peetwo]

ATSB World class? - My ASS!  


Ref: SBG, Senate Estimates thread, UP & Media reports.

https://auntypru.com/sbg-6-10-19-fuzzy-logic-redefined/ + https://auntypru.com/forum/showthread.ph…7#pid10667 + https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-07/s…s/11578554 + https://www.news.com.au/national/breakin…b8e24d0597 + http://www.australianflying.com.au/lates...hpPVyr8.99

Angel Flight Inquiry report tabled - 

Well I'll be, this must be the world's quickest turn around on a Senate committee inquiry report since forever? Well at least since the Heff left the building...  

https://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/...report.pdf

List of Recommendations

Recommendation 1

1.74 The committee recommends that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority amend the Civil Aviation (Commercial Service Flights – Conditions on Flight Crew Licences) Instrument 2019 to remove the provisions for additional aeroplane maintenance requirements, which are beyond those required for airworthiness in the general aviation sector.

Recommendation 2

1.78 The committee recommends that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority amend the Civil Aviation (Commercial Service Flights – Conditions on Flight Crew Licences) Instrument 2019 to clarify what constitutes the 'operating crew' for a community service flight, particularly as this relates to additional pilots and mentoring arrangements.

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Also from the report it would appear that additional correspondence has been tabled and reviewed within the last week and a half which in the scheme of things is IMO significant:

1  Correspondence from Angel Flight, dated and received 29 September 2019, regarding a safety recommendation from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

(my bold)

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September 26, 2019


We have been requested by Angel Flight Australia to write to your committee, outlining our operation and the minimum requirements we demand for volunteer pilots flying for our organization. We operate in a similar fashion to Angel Flight Australia, and we assisted them in the setting up of that charity using our model.

All of our coordinated flights are under Part 95 category, and as such, there are no regulatory requirements imposed by the FAA other than the standard rules which apply to private flights in the USA. In 2012 the FAA published a set of recommendations; however, these were not enacted into law. We have chosen to adopt some of the recommendations: there are different rules for commercial operators who seek exemptions from the commercial rules, but these do not apply to us as we operate only under the private flight category.

To date we have undertaken 82,000 missions- defined as the passenger-carrying leg only (and approximately 140,000 flight sectors including the positioning and return flights). Although about 75% of our pilots hold instrument ratings, many of our flights are conducted under the VFR flight regulations. The climates in the Southwest US is similar to much of Australia, and VFR flight is suitable. Occasionally weather is bad enough to make conditions not suitable to fly under IFR.

The minimum standards we require are on the following page.

Sincerely,


Cheri Cimmarrusti
Associate Executive Director
Angel Flight West

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2  Correspondence to the committee from Angel Flight West (US), dated 26 September 2019, regarding its minimum standards for operation. Received 27 September 2019.

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ATSB SAFETY RECOMMENDATION


The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that Angel Flight Australia
takes action to enable it to consider the safety benefits of using commercial flights
where they are available to transport its passengers.

ANGEL FLIGHT RESPONSE

Angel Flight has considered the recommendation carefully and has determined that
it maintain its current policy of giving priority to using private flights where possible
and to continue to use regular public transport flights when private flights are
cancelled or unavailable, and for transfers between capital cities.

The reasons for our decisions are:

Angel Flight rejects the claim in the ATSB report that, for Angel Flight
passenger carrying flights, the “fatal accident rate was more than seven
times higher per flight than other private flights” as invalid.

A valid analysis addressing passenger risks would require comparison of
passenger carrying Angel Flights and other passenger carrying private
flights. Since no such data are available for other private operations, the
only reasonable comparison is between all Angel Flight operations and all
other private operations. Even then, results must be treated cautiously
because an unknown proportion of private operations involve circuit
training and short local flying whereas all Angel Flight operations involve
flights with an average sector length of 1.5 hours.

The analysis in Table B2 on page 69 shows that, when all Angel Flight
sectors are included, the fatal accident rates are 0.5 and 0.2 per 10,000
flights for Angel Flight and other private flights respectively, and the
difference is not significant. Furthermore, when all accidents are included,
the rates are 1.1 and 1.5 per 10,000 flights for Angel Flight and other
private flights respectively.

Angel Flight rejects the claim in the ATSB report that “community service
flights conducted on behalf of Angel Flight Australia (Angel Flight) had
substantially more occurrences …… per flight than other private operations”
as invalid.

ATSB has compared Angel Flight operations, approximately 95% of which
operate to and from Class C and D airspace with other private operations
where an unknown, but undoubtedly much lower, proportion of flights are
in controlled airspace. Angel Flight has been unable to find any data that
would permit a valid comparison of similar operations for other private
flights.

The ATSB report acknowledges, in the Safety Summary, that “The types of
occurrences where flights organised by Angel Flight were statistically overrepresented
(as a rate per flight) compared to other private operations
were consistent with these operational differences.” However, the report
then immediately ignores the vastly different operating environments and
claims that the difference “indicated an elevated and different risk profile in
Angel Flight”.

Ps I note, that despite the AF response correspondence to the ATSB's SR being sent at least 1 week ago, there has been no corresponding update published on the ATSB website: https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv...069-si-01/

I sometimes ponder whose side the Oz aviation editor Ironsider is on (the angels or the devil himself), especially after reading her take on the RRAT committee performance of the ATSB report :

Angel Flight ‘risk’ to remain on record

ROBYN IRONSIDE 



Investigators at the site of plane crash that killed 3 people near Mount Gambier. Picture: Tom Huntley

• 11:59AM OCTOBER 7, 2019
  

A report that found Angel Flight services posed a much greater risk to passengers than other private flights will remain on the public record, after a Senate committee refused calls to have it struck out.

Angel Flight, which pairs volunteer pilots with residents of ­regional and remote communities in need of transport to city medical appointments, had ­objected to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau report on a fatal crash at Mount Gambier in July 2017.

The triple fatality crash was the second involving an Angel Flight service in six years, and prompted a recommendation that the charity send passengers by commercial flights instead of with private pilots.

Chief executive Marjorie Pag­ani told the standing committee on rural and regional affairs and transport the ATSB report was “wrong, dishonest and misleading and used inventive and flawed datasets … It was, and it’s always been, set out to be an attack on this charity”.

Her demand for the report to be withdrawn was echoed by Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association executive director Benja­min Morgan, who claimed the report was designed to justify regulatory changes by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority targeting Angel Flight.

The committee’s final report said the work of the ATSB in accident investigation was “considered … to be world class”.

“The committee further appreciates that both the ATSB and CASA’s actions are aimed at ­improving safety and reducing risk,” the ­report said.

Two recommendations were made, for CASA to relax extra maintenance requirements for community service flights, and asking CASA to clarify what constituted an operating crew for a community service flight.

A CASA spokeswoman said: “We are … somewhat perplexed that a Senate inquiry into the performance of the ATSB somehow ­results in two recommendations for a completely separate organisation, CASA,” she said.

An ATSB spokesman noted it did not make any recommendations for the bureau.

Ms Pagani welcomed the two recommendations for CASA but said it was disappointing no further action would be taken with regard to the ATSB investigation.

"..said the work of the ATSB in accident investigation was “considered … to be world class”.


 
Hmm...does the committee expect industry professionals and subject matter experts to seriously not challenge such a bollocks statement?  

Example: https://auntypru.com/forum/showthread.ph...6#pid10586

..My point M’lud is a simple one. Why are both CASA and ATSB avoiding calling this accident for what it truly is and why, more to the point, have they generated phony statistics when across the globe, real data relating to a ‘loss of control’ in IMC are readily available. Australia has had it’s share of such accidents; that is where the real safety case lays – not in some confection of Angel Flight data. Ask for the real statistics – how many GA aircraft have been lost through this type of occurrence; and, how many of those were AF aircraft.  Then ask what ATSB and CASA have achieved in relation to a real reduction in the number of fatal accidents of this nature over the decades. The answer may just surprise you...

"..A report that found Angel Flight services posed a much greater risk to passengers than other private flights will remain on the public record, after a Senate committee refused calls to have it struck out.."

Personally I think there is something seriously dodgy going on when a senate committee does not insist that the ATSB either withdrawal and/or properly review an accident report that is so obviously consciously biased and deficient in the proper examination of the causal chain in the lead up to this tragic accident?

Perhaps the Leadsled comment off the UP goes to the heart of the issue of yet another ATSB final report aberration...

 

Originally Posted by Clearedtoreenter 

Hummm. The ATSB get off virtually scot free, although there were dubious statistics and glaring omissions regarding pilot qualification and behaviour and CASA get it in the neck from an inquiry that wasn’t even about them??? Hard to take anything too seriously in any of that!

Folks,

The ATSB treatment of "statistics" was a complete nonsense, as were certain subsequent statements emanating from CASA.

You simply cannot draw statistical conclusions from just two accidents over a longish period of time.

What has happened to Angel Flight reveals personal prejudices of some in ATSB and CASA, and little more.

Tootle pip!!

     


MTF? Yes lots...P2