[Peetwo]

From Ben Sandilands blog  - Plane Talking, on Crikey:-

Nothing can excuse the Albury Virgin ATR safety fiasco, not even this latest piece of ATSB fluff.

Where  the T-tail on Virgin ATR was seriously broken, but kept flying

...Now we have a new minister, Darren Chester, and it is too early to determine whether he does what his department tells him to do, or even asks whether it tells him what he really should be told.


The ATSB initially buried the matter in its weekly review. But based on what the ATSB released in June and what a genuinely deeply concerned Virgin Australia said and briefed, respectively, at that time, this is what Plane Talking then posted:

The core elements of the ATSB report show that Virgin Australia’s engineering contractor and the airline failed to identify and understand serious damage done to this aircraft in the turbulence event.


The aircraft was then allowed to carry passengers for thirteen sectors in that state before an in-flight crisis five days later approaching Albury from Sydney where it was grounded [for months until repaired enough to be flown away for more repairs.]


These are scandalous disclosures.  No one in the general flying public in this country expects that a contract maintenance organisation could be so bad at its job that it failed to understand and identify the grave safety of flight issues apparent on the Virgin turbo-prop on 20 February.


It is after all, what the maintenance provider is paid by Virgin to do, rather than scratch their heads and release the aircraft back into service.


It’s Virgin’s inescapable legal obligation to ensure that all aircraft are safe before flying. It didn’t ensure the safety of these 13 flights. It’s CASA’s role to enforce and maintain a safe level of oversight on airline operations and ensure that those who carry out aircraft maintenance are competent and effective.

It’s the Minister’s responsibility, to make sure that rural and regional air services, including those that fly him and his colleagues to and from Canberra, are safe. It’s called Ministerial responsibility.

How on earth did this situation arise with this aircraft, and what steps have been taken to ensure that whoever screwed up so badly, within Virgin, and within the contractor, never get to imperil the safety of flight in this country in this manner again?

This may seem harsh. But flight safety standards are by necessity harsh. The harsh reality is that 13 passenger loads were exposed to a broken aircraft, and that is intolerable. Read the ATSB document linked to above very carefully, as it contains inferences and disclosures that are very disturbing...

The rest of the article – HERE – is worthy of consideration and discussion.

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Mountains to Molehills – ATSB style.

When this ‘incident’ first came to light there were serious questions raised, to which ATSB has not deigned to investigate or answer.  The aftermath – 13 passenger flights – are not the aberration, but a resultant of the first in a series of events which remain firmly ignored, unmentioned and; not, as yet addressed.  

In short; the root cause of the initial ‘problem’ remains unresolved.  The ATR has a facility which allows the two normally interconnected flight control systems (yokes) to be disconnected and operate independently.  This in case a manual flight control channel is lost.  With a significant amount of opposite direction pressure from the other yoke, (e.g. one pulls up, ‘tuther pushes down) the two flight control systems may be separated.  This event occurred during a ‘routine’ descent to approach at Sydney, with no noted flight control problem.  The potential for stress and damage caused by opposing control inputs, from two viable systems should have engineering alarm bells ringing, demanding serious, in depth inspection.  It did not.  The controls were simply reconnected, a cursory inspection conducted and the aircraft returned to service; for the remaining 13 flights.

In other accident events ATSB have played the accompaniment to the CASA preconceived notion, Canley Vale and Pel-Air for example.  Where ATSB report supported a stern, rapid prosecution of pilots and operators, through to Coroners court, where required.  There are some very serious incidents still on the books at the moment related to turbo-prop powered aircraft – Moranbah and the Newcastle coal loader incident for example; there are some serious, outstanding heavy jet transport incidents, such as Perth and Mildura which are still patiently awaiting their ATSB final report.

If we are serious about ‘safety’ the minister, the government and travelling public need to get over the bi-partisan system of relying on ATSB and CASA to ‘sort it’ and start demanding changes to the way our ‘aviation watchdogs’ set about doing their expensive business.  But, enough said.   All been said before, and precious little changes.  But gods help the government in power when the unthinkable happens and a Royal Commission is demanded.

The time is now, to get our aviation safety house in order, before we run out of dumb luck.

Toot toot.

When 'Darren' is standing looking down into a smoking hole, filled with body parts, will he have a hair out place then? - Big money say not.

Thanks P7, my shout; soon.