[Peetwo]

A Black box – for Beaker’s coffin?

Good news – and well done the Black box system, robust, serviceable and performs design function very well indeed.  Of course the OBR are designed and specified to survive just about anything, the information considered invaluable to accident analysis, which is why ICAO mandate recovery.  Only under the ‘Beyond all reason’ methodology can a commissioner declare the information of no practical or intrinsic value and decide which information is relevant:-

"[and] relevant information will be included in the ATSB’s final report, which is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2016."

Bollocks - In the interest of probity – all data and transcript should be released to the Senate Committee – in camera – as evidence; to provide a ‘clean’ unadulterated version of fact. The TSBC should be invited to examine and provide an independent report.  ATSB cannot be trusted to provide an unvarnished, unbiased version.  Not any longer.

The likes of Hattley and Chopin must be having a quiet smile – honour and investigative probity satisfied.

The damage Beaker and his mates have done to ATSB credibility is palpable and toxic; the time to restore industry and public faith is now.  Dolan must go, for he cannot possibly stay, not if ATSB is to be rehabilitated and restored to credibility. 

Selah.

To add further to the Ferryman's very pointed post, I note that in recent days there has been some good commentary on Ben's article..

Pel-Air 2nd final report now has data, and a stab at a date


Ben Sandilands | Nov 25, 2015 10:35AM |


The aft section of the ditched jet as seen early this year

...which I simply had to contribute to.. :

1
Dan Dair
Posted November 26, 2015 at 5:12 pm | Permalink

Will 2 hours & 4 minutes of CVR data be sufficient to prove or disprove the Captains claim of inaccurate information being supplied to him by Australian ATC.?

I suspect not.?

2
Fred
Posted November 27, 2015 at 1:23 pm | Permalink

Dan,
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but my understanding is that the information provided by Nadi and Auckland ATC (not Australian!) during the two-hour window recorded by the CVR is not in dispute. The original ATSB report clearly states that an amended forecast for the aircraft’s ETA at Norfolk Island was not provided, and neither was the 0830Z SPECI report that indicated the weather was below landing minima. The ATSB brushed that off by saying that ATC were not required to provide the information by any international agreement, and the report failed to make any safety recommendations on that issue.

The aircraft ditched at 1026Z, so the CVR should have recorded any communications from 0822Z onwards. According to the ATSB’s timeline, the aircraft’s last point of safe diversion for Noumea didn’t occur until after 0900Z. If the 0830Z SPECI had been provided on first contact with Auckland ATC, the crew may well have made the decision to divert to Noumea. Unfortunately we’ll never know, because, as already acknowledged by the ATSB, the crew was not advised of that report.

That said, the 0800Z SPECI that WAS provided to the aircraft indicated that the observed weather had deteriorated and was below the alternate minima. That should have been a trigger for the crew to start looking at diversion options and to start being far more pro-active in seeking out the latest weather information. That didn’t happen for some reason, perhaps due to fatigue or communication difficulties with ATC. I’m not sure that the CVR will shed much light on that aspect, given that the recording only commences at 0822Z.

I think the bigger issues with the re-opened investigation are the organisational, regulatory and human factors issues that were ignored in the original investigation. Hopefully the ATSB will get that part right the second time around and will also point the finger at CASA’s deplorable oversight of Pel-Air’s operations. I’m not holding my breath.

3
comet
Posted November 27, 2015 at 4:17 pm | Permalink
And after that somebody needs to investigate the ATSB to find out why it did not release a competent investigation report.

4
Dan Dair
Posted November 28, 2015 at 1:22 am | Permalink

Fred,
Thanks for clarifying my errors.

I didn’t realise that the (Auckland) ATC communication failings were accepted, but considered irrelevant by the report.??

It will be very interesting to find what was actually said in the cockpit prior to the pilots realising the true extent of the weather problems at Norfolk Island.?

I will be extremely surprised if the outcome of the investigation is the strong censuring of the ATSB & CASA, as would appear to be appropriate based on what is already in the public domain, especially as a result of the Canadian ‘peer-review’.?

5
PAIN_P2
Posted November 28, 2015 at 11:19 am | Permalink

Fred that was a fairly accurate account of what was (or wasn’t) transmitted by ATC (NADI/Auckland)& received by VH-NGA.

For the record (courtesy Senate RRAT committee) here is a link for a Bryan Aherne supplied copy of the official transcript: http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx...2ffa885397

From that it can be seen that at 0801 UTC NADI first gave the 0630 METAR followed closely by the 0800 SPECI. It should be remembered that the 0630 METAR contained an error that was later discovered by the ABC 4 Corners program. NADI stated FEW at 6000 ft when in actual fact it was FEW at 600ft. The ATSB later had to correct their report to reflect this.

How the METAR/SPECIs from NADI were actually interpreted by the flight crew prior to the 0841 UTC transfer to Auckland will unfortunately not be covered in most part by the CVR. From part of the 4C program transcript Dominic James was shocked when told about the NADI cloud-base error transmitted. This was what he said in reply:

DOMINIC JAMES: If I’d been told that there was cloud at 600 feet, even given the fact that I suspected the automatic system was overstating the weather at Norfolk, I would’ve gone to Fiji.


GEOFF THOMSON: But moments later another weather report comes from Fiji which is acknowledged by the flight crew as the latest weather available.
It contradicts what they’ve just heard and says weather conditions on Norfolk Island are in fact deteriorating.

DOMINIC JAMES: I maintain that that weather report, exactly as it appears in that transcript, is not what we had on the flight deck. That’s not what I copied down, it’s not what I comprehended.

GEOFF THOMPSON: And how do you explain that?

DOMINIC JAMES: To be honest with you, I can’t

So it is reasonable to assume that this was a significant (previously not identified)hole in the Swiss cheese. Combined with (as Fred stated) the absence of the amended TAF being relayed you have two holes already aligned.

Therefore the CVR transcript will still be significant (from approx. 0830 UTC) because it should at least have the crew interaction/interpretation of the relayed deteriorating wx conditions in the lead up to the ditching.

Cheers

P2

Ps Another fact about the 0801 UTC NADI transmission (0630 METAR), is that the CASA version (summary) of the ATC transcripts in their CAIR 09/3 investigation report (see pg 51 here: http://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/2..._CASA1.pdf ) conveniently omits all the details from the 0630 METAR.

Much talk about the 2hr 4min of CVR recording but it should not be forgotten the valuable data that will be extracted from the FDR. For example the fuel flows for the different flight levels when VH-NGA was forced to leave RVSM airspace from FL390 or to prove/disprove the CASA & ATSB last point of safe diversion...


MTF..P2