[Peetwo]

The 0904 from Auckland.

P9: ...The use of a ‘general term’ i.e. ‘weather forecast’ is not nearly good enough. I wonder has the ‘second’ Pel-Air report provided an in depth analysis of the legal/technical information conveyed to James (and his FO) or the application of that information to his decision process.


IMO - P7 nailed it – the 0803 from Nadi was pivotal. Auckland wouldn’t think to confirm that the flight had an update issued an hour ago – and so another strand of the safety net was broken. I digress...

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P2: ...the 0803 amended Terminal Area Forecast (TAF) was never actually relayed to the flight crew; or that the 0904 from Auckland...




was not actually a 'weather forecast' but was really an auto METAR/SPECI and not a TAF (forecast) at all...

The 'passing strange' omissions in paragraph 6 in Hood's original (

Letter to Mr Dominic John ~ NOTICE OF SUSPENSION OF COMMERCIAL PILOT (AEROPLANE) LICENCE dated 24 December 2009.pdf Size: 561.88 KB  Downloads: 4

) notice of suspension; of the 0803 amended TAF or indeed the 0801 Nadi relayed Norfolk island METAR can partly be explained by the fact that the CASA investigators & FOI's involved were yet to receive the transcript from the Fijian ATC.

This begs the question to how it was possible for the delegate Hood to make a fully informed decision when such critical information, which included a amended TAF that if received by the VH-NGA flightcrew would have automatically placed a legal operational requirement on the conduct of the rest of the flight.

It is also interesting to note that on the 16 December 2009 DJ was informally interviewed (i.e. not recorded) by CASA investigators and in the course of that interview the 0803 amended TAF was never brought up or even acknowledged. So perhaps the omissions were purely a symptom of reckless, cocksure ignorance and/or arrogance...

However the errors and omissions in transcripts, amended TAFs etc in the evidential trail - that left DJ lumbered with a dodgy, ill-informed Hoody decision to suspend DJ's licence - were to continue and be used against DJ all the way through to June 2010. The following are some extracts from the ALC (& apparently acting manager LSD at the time) Joe Rule correspondence in reply to DJ's legal counsel on 11 June 2010:

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Note that again the 0904 from Auckland is errantly referred to by Joe Rule as a 'weather forecast'. Still no mention of the 0803 amended TAF but the Fijian transcript finally arrives and provides another golden opportunity to stick the knife yet again into DJ with the 0801 METAR that was transmitted to VH-NGA. (remember the 0801 contained the errant Nadi transmission of 6000' feet cloud base when it should have been 600') 

However, despite the examination by 'FOI's with many thousands of hours of aeronautical experience', the first CASA published acknowledgement and recognition of the significance of the 0803 Norfolk Island amended TAF did not occur until the CAIR 09/3 was released a month and ten days after the Joe Rule correspondence.

Extracts from page 7 & 8 of CAIR 09/3: 

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Note that Richard (ALIU) White completely glosses over the fact that the 0803 amended TAF was never relayed, by either Auckland or Nadi, to the flightcrew of VH-NGA...

Also note, that despite the assistance of so called technical FOI experts, Richard White was also under the same misconception, as Joe Rule and delegate Hood, that the 0904 from Auckland was a weather forecast (reference page 27 CAIR 09/3):

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Anyway you cut this up and spin it around, it is very hard to come up with how it was remotely possible for all these so called legal, technical and investigative (AAI) experts to miss the errors and omissions of the 0803 from Nadi and the 0904 from Auckland...   

However reckless indifference or plain ineptitude in due process is not a defence against section 24 of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003:

24  Offence to hinder etc. an investigation

             (1)  A person commits an offence if:
                     (a)  the person engages in conduct; and
                     (b)  the person is reckless as to whether the conduct will adversely affect an investigation:
                              (i)  that is being conducted at that time; or
                             (ii)  that could be conducted at a later time into an immediately reportable matter; and
                     ©  the conduct has the result of adversely affecting such an investigation (whether or not the investigation had commenced at the time of the conduct); and
                     (d)  the conduct is not authorised by the Chief Commissioner.

Penalty:  Imprisonment for 12 months.

      
MTF...P2