[Peetwo]

Interesting indeed Sheikh. One is almost inclined to say it smells like complete pooh! The chances of this aircraft simply vanishing, when you consider the amount of spy satellites and technology that exists. I would guess that neither the Americans nor the Chinese would like people to know that they were monitoring areas they probably shouldn't
have been looking at?
On a seperate note also of interest is the recent ICAO USOAP audit of the Thai DCA. Thailand reportedly only satisfied 21 out the 100 requirements inspected during the USOAP audit, which covers legislation and regulations, organisation and safety oversight functions, personnel licensing, aircraft operation supervision, aircraft accident and incident investigation, and the airworthiness of aircraft. I wonder how many of these elements Australia would be compliant with if ICAO came back for another audit? Remember there were a number of findings about the regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the incident and accident investigator, and AirServices Australia, that reflected poorly on their performance, and subsequently on the governmental and it's oversight.

Tick tock.................

Pot kettle black - from the Oz:

Safety regulator watching Thai Airways  



Steve Creedy

Aviation Editor
Sydney


Australia’s air safety regulator has increased scrutiny of Thai Airways flights after an inter­national audit found problems with safety standards in the southeast Asian nation.  

The audit by the Internat­ional Civil Aviation Organisation registered significant concerns with the country’s regulation of its aviation industry, primarily with procedures used to license airlines. The UN agency is working with Thai authorities to resolve the issue but countries including Japan and South Korea have banned additional flights from Thailand, while others such as Singapore and Australia have increased scrutiny on Thai operators.

The Australian regulator said in a statement that it was aware of the issues in Thailand and it was talking to Thai Airways as well as with Thai regulators.

Thai Airways, which has been struggling financially in the face of competition from budget ­carriers, is a participant in the International Air Transport ­Association Operational Safety Audit, which requires member airlines meet certain standards.

“CASA has increased the number of ramp inspections of Thai Airways flights operating into Australia,’’ the Australian regulator said. “These inspections look at the condition of aircraft as well as flight and aircraft documentation.

“At this stage CASA has not placed any additional restrictions on Thai Airways flights to and from Australia. This is subject to the results of increased surveillance and any additional information that may be provided by Thai Airways and the Thai air safety regulator.”
CASA said any request from Thai Airways for additional flights or changes to its approved operations would be considered in light of the issues raised by the safety audit.

ICAO has not posted its results from the January audit but a spokesman told the BBC that the organisation did not review aviation safety in a country, its airlines or airports.

“Rather, our audits continuously monitor the capability of state civil aviation authorities to adequately resource and ­manage aviation safety oversight responsibilities in their ­jurisdictions,” he said.

However, a failure to ­adequately address the issues raised by ICAO could prompt the US Federal Aviation Administ­ration to downgrade Thailand’s safety rating to category 2, which would put it at the same level as Indonesia.

And this from the Daily Mail - Thai Airways has been banned from flying to China, Japan, and South Korea over safety fears - so why does it still fly to Australia? 

"Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has placed higher safety restrictions on Thai Airways, but avoided following the footsteps of its Asian neighbours by banning future flights.

China, South Korea and Japan have all banned new charter flights of Thai carriers after an audit by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported that it found 'significant safety concerns' with the country's aviation safety to Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation."

"An ICAO spokesperson told AFP that some of the concerns with Thailand's aviation related to 'air operator certification procedures'.

A statement from the Thai ministry did not give details of the ICAO's concerns or recommendations.

It said that it planned to inform countries about the status of Thailand's aviation safety and 'the solutions to fix the faults that were found in the inspection as soon as possible.'

Japan has since temporarily lifted their ban for the next two months on the condition of stricter inspections, due to a huge number of travellers hoping to visit the country."

CASA may not want to be too heavy handed in case it draws attention from ICAO down our way, not to mention the possible negative impact to the tourism trade - money always speaks louder than aviation safety!

Ben didn't waste any time drawing the obvious comparisons:

Thai carriers under threat of air safety downgrade  

Ben Sandilands | Mar 31, 2015 4:50PM



Thailand is at risk of an aviation safety downgrade by ICAO and is taking urgent action under martial law powers to avoid the damaging commercial consequences that would follow such a decision.


It’s a story that ought to be of concern to Australian international carriers, given factors that could also cause a similar outcome because of the scandals and failures associated with CASA and the ATSB in recent years, and the inability of regulatory reform programs to meet declared targets under successive Labor and Coalition governments.

Most of the world’s aviation sectors, including those of Thailand and Australia, are rated as Level 1 states when it comes to having comprehensive, properly functioning and resourced air safety regimens.

But the dog’s breakfast of the Pel-Air scandal, where the regulatory shortcomings were actively suppressed and denied, and then saw an ATSB accident report failed in critical parts by a peer review by its Canadian counterpart, persists nearly five and a half years after that particular air ambulance flight was ditched near Norfolk Island in 2009.

It isn’t necessary to have a recital of the many past stories about these problems to understand the seriousness of issues that Thailand is now attempting to address and how equivalent sanctions or restrictions on Australian flag carriers could prove damaging.

Should Thailand, or for that matter Australia, be busted down to Level 2 status,  the flag carriers of each country would be prohibited  from starting new services or adding capacity to existing flights to the US, or codesharing with US carriers, or face similar restrictions in some countries in Asia, with the latter situation already a problem for some Thai carrier access to Japan and South Korea as set out in the story linked to above.

Such sanctions applied to Qantas or Virgin Australia would be manifestly unfair. However they apply to the flag carriers of countries in which the public administration of air safety is derelict by standards, resources and effectiveness.

A potential case of airlines of the highest standard being punished for the sins of the bureaucracy supposed to regulate them, and the governments supposed to be deeply and meaningfully engaged in their performance as measured by an audit process.

Thailand’s problem is not with what its goals or ambitions for aviation administration might be, but with their current state of delivery. Critics of CASA and the ATSB have in the recent past documented the poor state of such administration in Australia, but neither the previous government nor the current one have lifted their game above taking the advice of the very bureaucracies that are failing to perform.

Taking the advice of the Australian public service that everything is fine in the administrative side of aviation for which those same bureaucrats are responsible can bring the Australian airline sector undone.

The Thai situation ought to jolt the Australian government into taking a similar interest in the aviation industry. It probably won’t.

TICK..TOCK indeed Gobbles...P2

The following excellent article - from the AAP & hosted by Yahoo7 - follows on from the above and places potential further pressure on the apathetic Aussie government & its aviation safety bureaucracy to get their heads out of the sand or not ..

Asian aviation confronts safety concerns


AAP – Thu, Apr 9, 2015 11:01 AM AEST

•  

For Asia's aviation industry, the growing pains have just begun.

A year of disasters, the disappearance of Flight 370 and financial turbulence highlight the challenges confronting the world's biggest air travel market, where governments, regulators and airlines are struggling to keep up after a decade of astonishing growth.

A UN agency's warning about airline safety in Thailand, one of the world's top tourist destinations, is just the latest sign of ferment in the industry.

The boom has been driven by the region's explosive economic growth and market liberalisations that have allowed dozens of new discount carriers to flourish, turning the airline business on its head.

The strains are also showing in recurring pilot shortages and shortcomings in air traffic control systems and airport infrastructure that countries are scrambling to upgrade, especially in big Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia.

"We're in uncharted waters," said Desmond Ross, principal at DRA International aviation consultants and former head of the Pacific Aviation Safety Office, which oversees airline safety for South Pacific islands. "I don't think the world has seen this sort of growth before."
A third of aeroplane accidents in the Asia-Pacific region from 2008 to 2012 "involved deficiencies in regulatory oversight," the International Civil Aviation Organisation said in a report this year. Another 27 per cent involved "deficiencies in safety management".

Meanwhile, the agency's recent audit of Thailand has produced disquieting revelations about what lies below the surface of a country that has marketed itself to the world as a safe and welcoming destination.

The agency informed governments in March of "significant safety concerns," prompting several Asian nations to step up inspections of Thai airlines or block them from launching new flights and modifying schedules.

The leader of Thailand's military government, which ousted its civilian predecessor in a 2014 coup, blamed years of neglect for allowing problems to accumulate to a critical mass. He said the civil aviation department had only 12 inspectors, a figure unchanged for years despite huge growth in tourism.

The dictator has vowed to use his authoritarian powers to overhaul aviation, but it's unclear whether sweeping changes can be implemented fast enough to avoid a damaging downgrade of Thailand's safety rating.

Ross said Thailand's problems were not unique and stem from the "superfast expansion that's been taking place over the last 10 years". Aside from hurting tourism, the ICAO warning could also prompt insurance companies to raise their rates for airlines operating in Thailand.

Passenger numbers in Asia-Pacific have risen by a third over the past five years to 1.1 billion, and the region now accounts for 33 per cent of global air passenger traffic, according to the International Air Transport Association. That proportion is forecast to grow to 42 per cent within the next two decades as an extra 1.8 billion passengers take to the skies.

Another big source of concern is Indonesia, where in December an AirAsia jet carrying 162 people plummeted into the sea as it ran into stormy weather on its way from Surabaya to Singapore.

The disaster, the first ever fatal plane crash for the popular budget operator, was one of five suffered by Asian carriers in a 12-month period. The flight itself was unauthorised by Indonesian authorities, showing up laxness in its aviation oversight.

IATA is worried that regulations and infrastructure aren't being updated fast enough to keep pace with Indonesia's expansion. The Southeast Asian country's air travel market is forecast to triple over the next 20 years to 270 million passengers, making it the world's sixth biggest.

"I am very concerned about safety in Indonesia," IATA director general and former Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Tony Tyler said in a speech to Indonesian aviation officials in Jakarta in March. He noted the country has had at least one crash in which a plane has been written off every year since 2010.

"There is a safety problem here," he said. "It's not going to solve itself."

Tyler pointed out that the country needs to upgrade its air traffic management system to cope with the rising number of aircraft in the skies and future increases. Airlines have more than 800 new aircraft on order.

Despite the high profile of airline disasters in 2014, stemming in part from the double Malaysia Airlines tragedies, the airline industry asserts it was a relatively safe year for flying.

The total of 12 fatal accidents was below the five-year average of 19 and so called "hull losses," the write-off of aeroplanes from accidents fatal or nonfatal, was its lowest ever. From another perspective, however, it was a particularly tragic year. Including Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine which isn't included in the industry's accident tally, 939 people were killed in planes last year compared with 210 the previous year.

But what experts say is most relevant is whether safety will be compromised as air travel expands relentlessly in a region where countries range from advanced to among the world's poorest with huge differences in capacity to manage the safety of their air space.
"I think we're at a turning point where we either maintain this relatively good level of safety" in Asia "or it declines," said Ross.

    
TICK..TOCK miniscule & PM TA...this isolationism policy will not work forever & the SE Asians and ICAO are on the march South...

MTF...P2

Ps Oh & Mr Abbott the Malaysians are taking the piss with the MH370 investigation...