[Peetwo]

Dots, dashes & ICAO ADREP aberrations - Part III

{P2 reminder: Two weeks and counting until the first DIP responses to the 2nd VH-NGA (500+ page) DRAFT Final Report are due - TICK TOCK... }

Dear Australian (trough-feeding) mission to ICAO - Please explain...

In the course of reviewing the ICAO ADREP/ECCAIRS crumb trail to the original VH-NGA (non-)notification, which would appear to be at odds to Annex 13, ch 7, para 7.7...

Incidents to aircraft over 5 700 kg

7.7 If a State conducts an investigation into an incident to an aircraft of a maximum mass of over 5 700 kg, that State shall send, as soon as is practicable after the investigation, the Incident Data Report to the International Civil Aviation Organization.

 
....but not at odds with paragraphs 7.3 & 7.4...

Language

7.3 The Preliminary Report shall be submitted to appropriate States and to the International Civil Aviation Organization in one of the working languages of ICAO.

Dispatch

7.4 The Preliminary Report shall be sent by facsimile, e-mail, or airmail within thirty days of the date of the accident unless the Accident/Incident Data Report has been sent by that time. When matters directly affecting safety are involved, it shall be sent as soon as the information is available and by the most suitable and quickest means available.

 
...I happened to notice some strange anomalies with the ICAO/ECCAIRS version of the original preliminary report - Aus_Isreal_VH-NGA_18Nov2009_prelim.

To begin this copy was created two days after the original prelim report was released for public consumption on the 13th of January 2010. From that PDF it would appear that the original report was modified on 10/11/2015 at 8:13:02 am (click 'file' then click 'properties') by 'author' E.Hargreaves (ATSB REPCON Manager & ICAO co-ordinator).

Now remembering that the ECCAIRS IT application is basically a big version of a SMS incident/accident software program and is therefore supposed to be secure from 1st, 2nd and 3rd party modification/amendment after submission. Therefore the question that must be answered is how is it possible for the official ATSB ICAO co-ordinator to go back into 'modify' the original ICAO prelim report??  

The obvious answer is that the original prelim report copy, intended for ICAO, was not sent; or was intercepted before reaching the ICAO ADREP secretariat responsible for inputting all forwarded notifications and/or AAI reports.

In attempt to track down these anomalies Kaz Casey contacted ICAO directly, who subsequently forwarded her inquiries to the office of the permanent rep of the Australian mission to ICAO.

This the email chain that followed Ziggy's inquiries :

Subject: ICAO: query to the Australian Mission
 
Dear Ms Casey
 
Greetings from Montreal – I received a message from my office manager that you had called the Australian Mission to ICAO yesterday, with a query as to whether the Australian Government had filed its report(s) on the ditching of VH-NGA off Norfolk Island on 18 November 2009 with ICAO in line with the requirements of Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention.  I understand you were after a quick response, given time pressures on your end, therefore I thought it best to send you an email once I had an answer rather than wait for the timezones to align.
 
I have spoken with the relevant team in the ICAO Secretariat, who manage the databases of accident information.  They advise me their records indicate that they received the report and that there was no filing action outstanding at this time.
 
I hope this answers your query.  If not, or if you have any further queries relating to ICAO, please let me know.
 
Regards

---

Subject: Re: ICAO: query to the Australian Mission
 
Hi XXX,

Thank you for your prompt response.
Much appreciated.

Warm Regards,

---

& then 4 days later... :

Subject: RE: ICAO: query to the Australian Mission
 
Dear Ms Casey
 
Subsequent to sending you the advice earlier this week, I received follow up clarification from the team within the Secretariat confirming they had indeed received the preliminary report, but their records do not include having received the final report (they were unsure whether this was because it had not been send to them, or because they had made a mistake on their end in updating their records).
 
Apologies for the disjointed advice, but I wanted to update with the clarification ICAO provided me.
 
Regards

Hmm...all quite passing strange -

Which brings me 'back to the future' with reference to Search 4 IP posts - Passing strange - Part I  & Part II

Now remembering from the previous post CASA project OS 09/13 - Fuel and Alternate requirements...

"..The Australian Transport Safety Bureau database has provided evidence that fuel quantity issues are becoming problematic, and therefore it has been decided that action must be taken in order to address the issue specifically to account for sufficient fuel for the continuation of safe flight.


Additionally, amendment 36 to ICAO Annex 6 Part I, International Commercial Air Transport- Aeroplanes, has specific changes relating to fuel planning, in flight fuel management, selection of alternate aerodromes and extended diversion time operations (EDTO). This ICAO amendment also specifically addresses fuel and operational requirements for flights to Isolated Aerodromes.


Implementation of the ICAO amendment, either in part or in its entirety, will require CASA to identify those parts that may not be applicable to operations within the Australian aviation operating environment..."

Keeping the above in mind, at around about the time that the ATSB VH-NGA prelim report was released, there was a rather large point of disagreement (between CASA and the ATSB) over where the independent transport safety investigator's VH-NGA investigation was heading...

Reference from Senate AAI inquiry: Addinfo1_critical_safety_issue_recieved221012 & 04 CASA_Doc 2_Web

 
I reckon Blind Freddy could join those dots...



MTF...P2