[Peetwo]

Popinjay releases DFO cover-up report: Verdict - "Nothing to see here!" -   

Via PJ HQ:

ATSB releases safety study into aerodrome design standards and the Bulla Road Precinct development at Essendon Fields Airport



An ATSB safety study investigation’s findings contain important lessons for safety assurance in airport planning and safeguarding. It reviews the interpretation and application of Australian and international aerodrome standards, which affect how high and how close buildings can be placed to a runway.

The investigation examined historical uncertainty around the application of the aerodrome standards, and resolution by the Essendon Fields Airport operator of ‘grandfathering’, with the acceptance of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), to aerodrome standards from the 1970s. Those standards had been used to determine the width of the runway strip (the rectangular surface area surrounding the paved runway) for the east-west runway 08/26. This action also determined the location of the obstacle limitation surfaces (OLS) along the side of the runway strip. The planning and approval process for the Bulla Road (DFO) retail precinct at the airport in the early 2000s was considered in the context of that historical uncertainty.

“This complex investigation made nine findings pertaining to the acceptance of grandfathering in non-standard circumstances, review of safety cases, limited guidance for some safety standards, and assurance processes between federal agencies for airport planning relating to the Bulla Road Precinct,” said ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell.

“We note that both CASA and the airport operator have maintained that there is an acceptable level of safety with the current status of the runway strip, obstacle limitation surfaces, and publication of information to pilots. It was not the role of the ATSB to do a separate risk assessment, but we have noted the type of risk information that should be taken into account by aerodrome operators and regulators.”

Mr Mitchell explained that the OLS are imaginary surfaces that provide a protective buffer against obstacles, such as buildings, for aircraft in the final stages of the approach to land. Any obstacles that encroach the OLS are subject to a referral to the aviation regulator for risk assessment.
From 1971, when Essendon ceased operating as an international airport, the runway 08/26 strip width was changed from 300 metres to 180 metres. The OLS around it changed with this dimension as well. The strip width was consistently published as 180 metres. However, in 2015, CASA issued an instrument to approve obstacles and require the strip width be published as 300 metres when the standards for the 180 metre strip width were not identified. The effect was that the northern portions of the retail centre buildings (which were built in 2005) infringed the runway strip and OLS down the side of the runway strip. They were notified to pilots as obstacles.

Mr Mitchell explained that the ATSB’s investigation commenced in 2018 after questions arose in another investigation as to how the buildings came to infringe the OLS. In 2019, when standards from the 1970s were identified and grandfathering occurred with the publication of a 180 metre runway strip width, the retail centre no longer infringed the runway strip or OLS.

Mr Mitchell said that the investigation had been through extensive review processes with directly involved parties, and was rescoped when grandfathering provisions were applied during the course of the investigation. Further, there were challenges with the limited information available from historical periods stretching back to the 1970s to provide context to the investigation and the need to address varying interpretations of the standards.

Separately, but in parallel to this investigation, an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) taskforce has been reviewing the international standards (from which the Australian standards are derived) for the OLS. Changes have been proposed with consideration of the need to provide greater clarity on the application of the surfaces, and to reflect that modern aircraft and navigation systems have enabled reduced deviations from the intended flight path. Contracting States like Australia are considering the proposed changes.

“This investigation highlights the complex nature of airport planning and aerodrome safeguarding with the many factors that need to be considered to ensure an acceptable level of safety,” Mr Mitchell concluded.
“Aerodrome planning and aerodrome safeguarding can be further complicated when applying aerodrome standards with changing design criteria over a long historical period, as was the case at Essendon Fields Airport. It is even more challenging when there are incomplete records, limited guidance on how design criteria relate to risk, and changing interpretations of standards.”

Read the report: Aerodrome design standards and the Bulla Road Precinct development at Essendon Fields Airport, Melbourne, Victoria

Publication Date
30/06/2023

 
Finally, after 5 years 4 months and 2 weeks, Popinjay releases a Final Report with 146 pages of technical and bureaucratic waffle. IMO they could have saved the paper and expensive bureaucratic resources and simply referred to the following:

Obviously designed to put the reader into a coma after the first 20 pages or so... There is lots in there that really needs to be dissected and properly interpreted. However even after a skim read it becomes obvious that the report is cleverly layered to obscure the bigger safety issues at hand and ultimately dodging the bureaucratic mea culpa fact that the building of the DFO should never have been approved in the first place...  

Here is the one safety issue generated from this report... : Ref - https://www.atsb.gov.au/safety-issues/AI-2018-010-SI-04

Note that this safety issue was apparently released today, yet the department of Infrastructure has already actioned this safety issue dating back to 2020:

Action description
As a result of this investigation, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications advised the ATSB on 13 February 2020, that the following safety action had been taken:

The Airports Act 1996 (the Act) establishes the requirements for the Minister’s decision on Master Plans and Major Development Plans (MDPs) to have regard to the views of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and Airservices Australia (Airservices) in so far as they relate to safety aspects and operational aspects of the plan (specifically ss. 81(3)(d) and 94(3)(e) respectively).

The Department acknowledges the views of CASA were not included in the Bulla Road Precinct MDP submitted to the Minister for consideration in 2004. However, the Department’s method of mitigating risk from not receiving the CASA advice within the statutory timeframe was to recommend a condition be imposed on the development. This condition required Essendon Airport Pty Ltd ‘to consult with CASA during the construction of the proposed development and comply with any safety requirements specified by that agency’. Underlined worked out really well?? - 

The Department’s MDP process now includes an arrangement with CASA and Airservices for seeking advice on safety in accordance with the requirements under the Act. A specific format for receiving these views in the assessment of MDPs is not prescribed in the Act. This ensures advice from CASA and Airservices is in a format that is flexible and fit for purpose.

The Department has received confirmation from CASA and Airservices of their ongoing commitment to provide safety and operational advice on Master Plans and MDPs. The Department will continue to work closely with CASA and Airservices to ensure the existing approach remains fit for purpose.

I was also bemused that given AusALPA's high profile media campaign and related Parliamentary submissions in this matter, that the ATSB did not include the combined Pilot association as a DIP to the investigation?

Perhaps this 2020 AusALPA MR might help explain why:

Via AusALPA:

AusALPA Media Release: 16 September 2020

SHOPPING CENTRES MORE IMPORTANT THAN AVIATION SAFETY:

Australia’s Professional Pilots respond to the ATSB investigation update into the approval process for Bulla Road Precinct at Essendon Fields Airport

On the 21st of February 2017, a Beechcraft King Air crashed into a building that is part of the Essendon Airport Bulla Road retail precinct, tragically killing all five occupants on board.

This accident has put a spotlight on why a shopping centre was built closer to one of Essendon Airport’s runways than international standards allow.

  

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released a progress update to itsinvestigation: “The approval processes for the Bulla Road Precinct Retail Outlet Centre”, Investigation Number: AI-2018-010.

AusALPA believes that deep and latent safety problems exist in the system of airports regulation where aviation safety considerations are made secondary to development objectives. AusALPA asserts that the regulatory system is flawed due to an inappropriate bias that mandates that development proposals or airspace penetrations must be granted unless almost impossible to achieve risk thresholds are breached.

AusALPA hopes that the final report also addresses other related matters that have occurred at Essendon since the commencement of this investigation, AusALPA calls for the establishment of a high level Government Review to address the safety and economic regulation issues of Australia’s airports with an aim to genuinely reform airspace protection and other operational safeguards at Australia’s airports.

Background

AusALPA is the Member Association for Australia and a key member of the International Federation of Airline Pilot Associations (IFALPA) which represents over 100,000 pilots in 100 countries. We represent more than 7,500 professional pilots within Australia on safety and technical matters.

AusALPA is committed to protecting and advancing aviation safety standards and our membership places a very strong expectation of rational, risk and evidence-based safety behaviour on our government agencies and processes.

--- END ---

 

Finally take note of this extract from figure 26 of the FR:



Note that despite the runway width changing (IE 180 to 300m) the legal parameters for the OLS transitional surfaces (IE 1 in 7 slope) throughout history, since the 2004 Ministerial MAP approval, that the building line of the DFO was still cynically built to within millimetres of the 1 in 7 transitional surface. This was also the case for runway 17/35...

The view across to the DFO building wall on the day of the B200 fatal crash:



MTF...P2