[Peetwo]

Of risks, red flags, ridiculous responses and a rooted system - PartII con't.......

The Toga Boy said;

"Airservices  Australia, the government business that is responsible for TASWAM, said it was “confident that Tasmanian airspace is safe”. “In the past five years the [b]TASWAM network availability has consistently exceeded 99.95 per cent,” said Greg Hood, an Airservices air traffic chief. “There have only been three instances where the target was not achieved and the lowest level of service availability was 99.80 per cent".[/b]

Lame!! I call pony pooh on that statement Greggles. Good thing Hoody that during that other 0.5% of the time the PM's 737 and let's say a QF 737 didn't play mid-air dodgem? Might be time to listen to your ATC, the coal face, the blokes and blokettes that are concerned and outing in reports, the same reports that have been conveniently downplayed, downgraded and diluted the ATSBeaker. Pretty convenient huh? Today a risk but tomorrow no longer a risk, not through mitigation, but by changing a tick box and some paperwork at Pooh Central - ATsB. A miraculous fix that would even have The Lord feeling proud!

ATsB excrement churner said;

"Of the TASWAM faults ­reported by Airservices to the ATSB, none were assessed as ­impacting on aircraft safety or ­requiring further investigation.”

Says who? Beaker? Beakers mum? The Melbourne control tower cleaner? Miley Cyrus? Linda Lovelace? FFS this entire thing is the largest growing sordid mess one could not hope for. Only one piece of the jigsaw left to fit - smoking hole.

Tick tock Australian public tick tock

Exactly Gobbles says who?? Well judging by last Estimates under questioning from NX it would appear it is the MH370 super sleuth himself making these judgement calls...FFS!

Here he is watering down yet another in a growing list of ASA 'nothing to see here' incidents:

Senator XENOPHON: ...I go to question on notice 166. This relates to the issue of Essendon and Melbourne airports and the concerns about the loss of communication repeated at three hours. The question was:


At the time ATSB reviewed Airservices Cirrus report #ATS-0125061 was it aware that approximately 3 hours had elapsed between the time the reported breakdown of communication occurred and the time it was detected and corrected?

The answer was no. That is not a criticism, because I think the Cirrus had very little information contained in it. There was subsequently a REPCON. I am basing this on information from air traffic controllers and pilots who had been very concerned about that particular incident. They are concerned that the ATSB stated it reviewed the radar data using Webtrack, which is publicly available on the Airservices Australia website. Those I have spoken to have been quite concerned about that. A journalist told me this morning Webtrack is what they use to track the PM's plane. It is publicly available. It has been described to me as a bit of an infotainment site; it has all sorts of disclaimers that you cannot use Webtrack as it may include inaccuracies and typographical errors. The website says Webtrack provides a visualisation of the traffic flow in and around the airspace and it is uncertain and subject to error—'Do not use this for safety requirements' and the like. It is quite a comprehensive disclaimer.

Mr Dolan : And I understand the disclaimer.

Senator XENOPHON: Are you satisfied that Webtrack was used given the concerns that have been expressed about that three-hour period of aircraft taking off from runways at Essendon and Melbourne? Has the ATSB looked at the radar tapes on this rather than simply relying on Webtrack?

Mr Dolan : No. Perhaps we could take a step back and differentiate, as we should, REPCON from our normal investigation work. If this had been an ATSB investigation, we would have got the tapes, analysed them, taken a close look at them, understood them—checked them.

Senator XENOPHON: But you have not done that?

Mr Dolan : No, because we did not open an investigation into this event.

Senator XENOPHON: Why not though? I have air traffic controllers and pilots saying there is a period of three hours where there was no communication between the Essendon and Melbourne towers as there should have been. That is correct? You accept that there was a three-hour period?

Mr Dolan : Yes.

Senator XENOPHON: And you had runways, one in a southerly and one in a westerly direction, where the aircraft could have intersected?

Mr Dolan : There was a possibility of it, yes.

Senator XENOPHON: We are talking about aircraft flying at a few hundred kays an hour. That can be quite a significant possibility in terms of risk management, can't it?

Mr Dolan : It can. We looked at the initial serious report and, based on that and other information, did not think that, given the limited resources we have to review a whole range of air traffic control events, this was one that required our attention. We then received a REPCON. The REPCON is designed not as a basis for our formal investigation but as a basis for us to review a safety concern raised by someone and to bring it to the attention of the relevant organisation, in this case Airservices, and to bring the results, if necessary, to the attention of the regulator. We did.

Senator XENOPHON: But there was a REPCON, wasn't there?

Mr Dolan : There was.

Senator XENOPHON: Eventually there was a REPCON. You can still look at radar tapes—they are available, aren't they?

Mr Dolan : I am trying to explain and I apologise for not doing it well enough. A REPCON is not the same as an investigation.

Senator XENOPHON: I know that, but you make the decision as to whether there is an investigation or not?

Mr Dolan : That is correct.

Senator XENOPHON: You do not think that the REPCON warranted an investigation—given that there was a three-hour period when there was no appropriate communication between the Melbourne and Essendon towers?

Mr Dolan : Yes. Our key question is understanding what is potentially systemic and what might be relevant in terms of future safety.

Senator XENOPHON: Sure, but is loss of—

Mr Dolan : Under the REPCON, as we are required to, we reviewed and worked with Airservices to understand the nature of the event and what led to it—which was a breakdown in communications and a breakdown in the system, with a particular human factor. We were advised of the steps that had been taken to reduce the likelihood of this occurring again.

Senator XENOPHON: I am really alarmed by your answer in this respect. There are two airports close to each other. There is one runway going southerly and one westerly. Pilots and air traffic controllers say that, unless you have constant communication between the two, there is a real issue when those particular runways are operating. There was a REPCON initiated. What these air traffic controllers and pilots have put to me is that there was a real loss of separation assurance. Isn't that something that would concern you as the safety investigator in this country?

Mr Dolan : If there had been a loss of separation assurance, yes, that would be a matter of concern.

Senator XENOPHON: But you do not know, do you? You relied on this infotainment site.
Mr Dolan : No, we reviewed the material and we discussed it, but—

Senator XENOPHON: But you have not reviewed the radar? You have not reviewed the radar tapes, have you?

Mr Dolan : No, we asked Airservices to review the radar tapes.

Senator XENOPHON: And you won't review them? You have relied on Airservices—you won't review the radar tapes?
Mr Dolan : That is the nature of the REPCON system, yes.

Senator XENOPHON: You have the power to review the radar tapes, haven't you?
Mr Dolan : If I open an investigation, then yes I have.

Senator XENOPHON: But you are not going to open up an investigation into a three-hour period when there would have been dozens and dozens of take-offs and landings at these two runways?

Mr Dolan : From what we understand from our review of the REPCON, there was no loss of separation assurance.

Senator XENOPHON: But how do you know that there was no such loss of separation?
Mr Dolan : In our priorities for investigation, we did not see this as a high priority.

Senator XENOPHON: But you do not know whether there was loss of separation assurance or not, do you? In the absence of the ATSB looking at the radar tapes, you have no idea whether there was a loss of separation assurance or not—which is a very serious issue?

Mr Dolan : We have worked in a range of investigations with Airservices over a considerable period of time. We have confidence in what they provide to us in terms of assessment of losses of separation and loss of separation assurance. We asked the question of Airservices, we asked them to review the tapes and we, as a result, took it that there was not a loss of separation.

Senator XENOPHON: Are these radar tapes publicly available? If, say, an independent expert wanted to look at these tapes, are they publicly available—or do only you, the regulator, have access to them? Would CASA have it?

Mr Dolan : They are actually held by Airservices. I am not quite sure for how long. They are not publicly available. We have access to them where we need them for the purposes of investigation.

Senator XENOPHON: You did not know initially that there was a three-hour breakdown in communication between the two towers, did you?

Mr Dolan : No.

Senator XENOPHON: Have you checked WebTrak, that publicly available website which has all sorts of disclaimers as to its accuracy? Have you actually checked the WebTrak for the entire three hours out of the two runways?

Mr Dolan : No. We—

Senator XENOPHON: You have not even done that.

Mr Dolan : We reviewed WebTrak to understand the context of the repcon—the concern that related to a potential loss of separation or separation assurance in this event.

Senator XENOPHON: Okay. Let us leave the radar tapes, which seems to me to be the gold standard. But in respect of WebTrak, with all its flaws, did you do an analysis of WebTrak for that three-hour period where there was a loss of communications? Have you done that?

Mr Dolan : No, Senator.

Senator XENOPHON: You have not even done that. Will you? It is publicly available. When Senator Rice asked questions in estimates about some matters relating to noise complaints, I think you said that you could go back a number of years with WebTrak. I do not want to be verballing Senator Rice, but I think it was Melbourne. I think there were some issues that—

CHAIR: You are starting to do circle work.

Senator XENOPHON: No. I am not trying to do circle work. This is important. Will the ATSB at least look at the publicly available information on WebTrak out of the two airports for that three-hour period to see whether there was a loss of separation assurance?

Mr Dolan : We thought it was more effective to ask Airservices to take a look at the tapes and to provide us with their view as to whether there had been a loss of separation assurance.

Senator WILLIAMS: How long would it take you to look at what Senator Xenophon is requesting? How long would it take you to look at that information? A couple of hours?

Mr Dolan : Possibly. It would need to be done by someone with air traffic control experience so that they could understand it, and we have a range of priorities that we have got our limited air traffic control expertise focused on. This is a matter of the management of limited resources.

Senator XENOPHON: Could you please, Chief Commissioner, take on notice whether the ATSB will be taking this matter any further, at the very least, to look at the WebTrak for that three-hour period out of the Essendon and Melbourne airports, and also whether it would look at radar tapes? Also, it appears, from what has been put to me, that there is a fundamental issue that Airservices did not give you the full story initially.

Mr Dolan : In terms of not being informed of a three-hour period, that is true.

Senator XENOPHON: Does that not worry you, Mr Dolan?

Interesting that the coalface ATCOs obviously believed the YMML/YMEN incident serious enough to confidentially report through the seriously flawed REPCON system, although after this particular REPCON and the way it was handled - plus the flippant attitude of the Chief Commissioner - one has to ask why would they bother ever again??

MTF...P2