[Peetwo]

'Precious' Hoody sanctions DJ embuggerance -

Dear DJ...

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..Thank you for your email regarding correspondence within CASA concerning the draft report from the reopened investigation into the ‘Ditching of Israel Aircraft Westwind 1124A aircraft, VH-NGA, 5 km SW of Norfolk Island Airport on 18 November 2009’.  The ATSB will confirm with CASA its practices for disclosure of the draft report in this matter in the context of section 26 of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003.  Please note that section 26 of the Act does permit disclosure and copying of the draft report necessary for:

                   (a)  preparing submissions on the draft report; or
                   (b)  taking steps to remedy safety issues that are identified in the draft report.

Decisions around the content of submissions and deciding what steps to be taken to remedy safety issues are matters for CASA.  The email you have provided does not establish, prima facie, a breach of the Act with respect to copying or disclosure of the draft report.  The ATSB will make enquiries with CASA.

I note that you have included the ATSB’s Chief Commissioner, Mr Greg Hood, in the recipients list for your email.  As you may be aware, Mr Hood has recused himself from this investigation acknowledging his employment at CASA at the time of the accident.  Mr Hood is not involved in the ATSB’s decision making with respect to this investigation.  You may send any future correspondence on this particular matter to either myself or Colin McNamara, Chief Operating Officer.  Mr McNamara’s email address is colin.mcnamara@atsb.gov.au.

Regards..

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Before beginning to dissect the (CYA) weasel words from the ATSB Legal & Governance manager Patrick Hornby, here is a couple of what I believe are relevant quotes off two of my CASA embuggerance thread posts.

First from: The Leopard (Carmody) reveals it's spots  

DAS Carmody:"..I will not make a decision till after the ATSB report is finalised.."

Just think about that comment for a second..

Now although the intent by the DAS is to indicate that he will...be not making any references or revealing any part of the DRAFT report...he does appear to be indicating that he will be referencing the ATSB Final Report to inform his decision making process on DJ's request for the conditions on his ATPL be dropped...

Does this indicate that the DAS is contemplating breaching the spirit and intent of section 12AA of the TSI Act?

 
P2 Q/ In light of the Hornby comment..
 "..Decisions around the content of submissions and deciding what steps to be taken to remedy safety issues are matters for CASA.."

...one wonders why Carmody has to wait for the final report to be released in order to be (ill-)informed for his decision on the continued embuggerance (CEP) case of DJ?   

Next from: 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 (   Yesterday, 12:15 PM">Letter to Mr Dominic John ~ NOTICE OF SUSPENSION OF COMMERCIAL PILOT (AEROPLANE) LICENCE dated 24 December 2009.pdf (Size: 561.88 KB / Downloads: 1)) 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.

From that post & my previous post - Pelair dots, dashes & the DJ TOE - coupled with the highlighted conflict of interest sensitivity 'Precious' Hood has on the matter; IMO the whole veracity of the appointment of Greg Hood as CC of the ATSB needs to be independently reviewed and I would question whether Hood's continued employment as Chief Commissioner is in fact tenable?
 

MTF...P2