[Peetwo]

'That man Higgins' today, via the Oz : 

A pilot’s act of heroism, then lives destroyed over eight years of hell

Pilot Dominic James at Mosman in Sydney. Picture: John Feder..

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM November 27, 2017
  

Whatever he did or failed to do earlier in the flight, the way pilot Dominic James brought it to an end is regarded by aviation buffs as an extraordinary feat of airmanship, the stuff of legend.

It was during the night of ­November 18, 2009, and James was at the controls of a Westwind two-engine jet owned by Pel-Air. He was in command in the left-hand seat, co-pilot Zoe Cupit in the other. In the rear, on a stretcher, lay the very ill Melbourne woman who was the purpose of his CareFlight mission from Australia to Samoa and back: Bernie Currall, who had contracted a severe infection from a botched hysterectomy and needed intensive care in an Australian hospital.

Also in the passenger section were Currall’s husband, Gary, and the flying doctor and nurse sent to look after her during the flight, David Helm and Karen Casey.

James had set off with enough fuel to fly from Samoa to Norfolk Island, where he intended to take on more; he left the tip tanks unfilled to keep the aircraft light enough to get to high altitude where jets get best endurance.

The CareFlight Pel-Air Westwind plane that was forced to ditch in the sea off Norfolk Island.

He did not have enough fuel to fly to an alternative airport in the vast spaces of the Pacific if the weather at Norfolk Island turned bad at the end. But that was allowed for his type of flight under Civil Aviation Safety Authority regulations, it fitted Pel-Air’s operational guidelines, and the weather report for Norfolk Island when he set off was good. When the plane approached Norfolk ­Island, however, the weather wasn’t good. In fact, it was just about the worst it could be, the rain torrential, the clouds low.

James and Cupit attempted to get the plane down on Norfolk Island four times, trying different approaches. Fuel was about to run out, and there was nothing for it: James had to try to ditch the aircraft in the sea, in a storm with big seas, in the dead of night.

James lowered the flaps and slowed the aircraft, but it was too dark to see the direction of the swell. The plane hit the water hard, and Casey suffered a severe jolt which tore her neck and shoulder muscles.

“It broke underneath me,” Casey told The Australian. “The impact smashed all my teeth. I was knocked out very briefly.”

Karen Casey was a nurse on the Careflight plane.

The water started pouring in, and Bernie Currall was helpless on the stretcher. “She was absolutely terrified,” Casey said. “She was strapped in, relying on us. It was a rough ocean, and it was coming in over her head.”

Helm and Casey worked to get Currall unstrapped, and they ­escaped the sinking plane. James marshalled everyone in the ocean. Some had life jackets, some didn’t. James got his pocket pen light out and shone it into the night.

Incredibly, a fireman saw the light from shore, and was able to relay directions to a rescue boat, which picked up all six souls.

Businessman and aviator Dick Smith, who has flown similar twin-engined light jets over oceans, described James’s actions as “an incredibly talented feat”.

“Being able to get that plane down at night and all the passengers out alive was great,” Smith said.

Eight years on, the toll of the accident is still being played out. Casey has not been able to work again, the physical pain from her injuries persisting, and she still struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. While she got a large compensation payout for the physical injuries, Pel-Air and its insurers fought her claim for PTSD, arguing it was not a “bodily injury” as required under the Civil Aviation Act. Casey won the PTSD part of the case initially, but the airline successfully reversed it on appeal earlier this year.

Helm, who suffered a debilitating back injury, returned to his ­native England and works as an emergency doctor near Brighton.

The greatest tragedy involves the woman for whom the flight was made: Bernie Currall. Having survived the ditching, being pulled naked from the sea after 90 minutes in the water, and then a long time in an Australian hospital, she developed chronic PTSD and had to spend periodic stretches in mental wards.

“She was one of those people who smoke a lot and seem permanently spooked,” James said of Bernie Currall’s mental state.

She, too, battled Pel-Air and its insurers for years. In February 2015, she committed suicide.

“She put up a brave fight, but the insurers were brutal,” James said. All the survivors have stayed in touch, and they are close.

“We were up against three sets of giants,” Casey said. One was Pel-Air, the second was an “insurance company that was just massive”, and the third was “a federal government that wasn’t going to help”.


The 2009 Pel-Air Westwind on the sea bed. Picture: ATSB

Left a widower, Gary Currall is understood to be trying to put the terrible affair behind him.

Cupit went on to fly with Virgin. But James is still battling two government agencies: CASA and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which investigates air ­accidents. In what James says remains “the worst thing that happened to me in my life”, after the accident CASA suspended his ­licence to captain jets that have two pilots. CASA has revoked the suspension, but the flyer and aviation watchdog are still locked in a dispute about how and when an ­“observation” flight can be flown to confirm it.

James now flies as co-pilot, or in command but under the supervision of a captain, for another charter and air ambulance company, Falcon Air.

After the accident, the ATSB took almost three years to produce a report that focused on what it said were mistakes by James relating to fuel planning and weather checks.
But an ABC Four Corners investigation revealed a CASA audit after the crash, and not mentioned in the ATSB report, uncovered 57 breaches and “serious deficiencies’’ at Pel-Air.

The disclosures led to a Senate inquiry, which found grievous failures in the ATSB investigation and CASA’s handling of the affair.

In its wake, the then transport minister, Warren Truss, ordered an unprecedented fresh inquiry, and last week, after another three years, the ATSB brought down its second investigation report.

The second report placed considerably more emphasis on failures in CASA’s regulations governing long-distance flights in remote areas — of which it says many have still not been resolved — and Pel-Air’s poor guidelines.

While it confirmed James had operated within the rules and regulations, it still found he made a number of errors related to fuel management and keeping abreast of weather updates. It also found he did not put the aircraft down at optimal speed and failed to report his final location.

James says the report still leaves a stain on his reputation as a pilot despite the fact he has had a flawless professional flying record over the past eight years.

He says the investigators did not appreciate the circumstances at the end of the flight.

“The whole world is burning down around our ears,” James said of those final minutes.

“We have the radio, the passengers to manage, and I have to control the aircraft.”

Casey thinks James’s treatment by the ATSB “stinks”, and misses the fundamental point as far as she is concerned: “I’m hurt, but I’m alive. I have nothing but praise for Dominic.”

James has had a longstanding ally in former independent senator Nick Xenophon, who helped get the Senate inquiry going. Xenophon’s replacement, Rex Patrick, told The Australian he was dissatisfied with the second ATSB report and was taking steps to have the organisation reappear before a Senate committee for a further grilling.

The second report comes at a time when the bureau is under ­attack for repeatedly failing to bring out investigation reports on schedule, and for suppressing critical information related to its failed search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Senior ATSB officer Colin McNamara refused an FOI request from The Australian for the MH370 documents because their release “would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to the international relations of the commonwealth”, a decision supported on review by ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood.

According to Smith, a former chairman of CASA, it all goes to a toxic culture in the ATSB, which he describes as secretive, insecure, and inclined to protect its own interests and those of companies and government instrumentalities rather than serving the public and individuals.

Relatives of those killed in air accidents point to broken promises. Felicity Davis’s husband, John, a prominent environmentalist and documentary-maker, was killed in a helicopter crash in ­November 2015, and at the time the ATSB said it would complete an investigation in a year. It has now been two years, and the ATSB keeps saying it will produce a report, but doesn’t.

“I just feel we are getting fobbed off,” Davis said.

The Australian put questions about Davis’s concerns to the ATSB and sought comment from the investigator involved. There were no answers to the questions and no comment from the investigator, but McNamara took a dislike to the fact that the request had been made in the first place, and sent a menacing email back. Unless The Australian changed its behaviour, McNamara warned, “We will exercise our right not to engage with you on future requests”.

According to Smith, such behaviour is “outrageous”. “They are basically a secret, secret organisation. They are so insecure.”

Smith believes it’s time for Transport Minister Darren Chester to take charge and demand the ATSB bring itself up to the levels of efficiency, timeliness and transparency that Australians expect for their taxpayer dollars, and in a fashion consistent with a democracy that values free speech and freedom of the press.

And some comments...

Michael

Look at PelAir history from the time it phoenixed out of Wings Australia in the early 1980s. Three Westwinds destroyed and four pilots dead. Dominic and many other living victims.

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Peter

The ATSB is a national disgrace! Vastly experienced pilots like Byron Bailey and hundreds of others, plus experienced air crash investigators have continually voiced their opinions that MH 380 was flown by the pilot deliberately into the sea, and there is sufficient physical and other evidence to support this view.

The ATSB officer MacNamara has given the game away by stating that to release documents to the Australian would, quote: "would have the expectation to cause damage to the international relations of the Commonwealth"!

That sentence says it all, and has revealed what this whole appalling fiasco for the last two years has been about!

They have been looking in the wrong place, they know they have been looking in the wrong place, have spent 2 years and $200 million doing it, all to appease the sensibilities of the Malaysian Government.

If the minister doesn't put the cleaners through this disgraceful body he too should be fired.

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David

Bring CASA to heel as well.

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pmac

ATSB   and the APVMA   must be trained by the same obfuscation college

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graham

After coloring themselves into a corner, it was a pretty good effort by Dominic James and crew including the Doctor and Nurse who didn't wilt under pressure; pretty rare to have a 100% survival rate in  such a situation.

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Peter

Who do these "supervisors of flying bus drivers" think they are. Shades of 1950's Qantas pilots who exuded a "God Like" air. Time for public servants to be just that "Public Servants"

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Alexander

Thank you Ean for keeping the spotlight on our disgraceful regulator CASA and its sycophant ATSB. It’s high time Australia realised the extraordinarily poor return its reaping from the failed experiment of the ‘independent umpire,’ a 30 yo concept of ‘user pays’ and an excuse for removing Ministerial responsibility. ATSB is shown up as completely inept and incapable of making a timely or objective finding. The (Un) Civil Aviation Safety Authority has progressively turned itself into a fee gouging regulation and salary factory with no regard to having destroyed General Aviation. 30 years rewriting the aviation rules, still not finished $300 million down the drain. Incapable of admitting it might improve, instead prefers to scapegoat the pilot. Alex in the Rises

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Botswana O'Hooligan

@Terence  When you do a medivac there are huge pressures brought to bear on you, the company (Care Flight) is in the business to make money and if you knock back a flight they will get all upset and the people who use their services will look askance, the family will bring pressure on you in various ways if they can, the medical staff are only interested in saving the life of the patient and most nearly always don't think about their own lives because that is their natural tendency, so it is up to you. When you do an organ retrieval for instance, a heart is only good for about four hours and you think to yourself that someone has died so that someone may live so you leave no stone unturned to facilitate that operation, and ATC shine in instances like that for they too open all the taps for you. Some people can handle that pressure, others can't.

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Botswana O'Hooligan

@arlys  20/20 vision in hindsight is a wonderful thing and one wonders if that young man would do the same or something similar again. I really do doubt if skill and daring played a part, lady luck did for she sometimes smiles down upon aviators, and the tragedy didn't happen. If that young man had skill he would have demonstrated it by carrying a bit more fuel for "mum and the kids," would have got the latest Taf's issued for Norfolk and even Tontuta 430 odd miles from Norfolk. Most of all that accident proves that the person occupying the left hand seat must have maturity, be able to make a decision if prudence dictates that the company is in error, and be right on top of the game as well has having the necessary licences. Samoa to Brisbane is 2100 odd nautical miles, that aeroplane is supposed to be able to do 2300 which is close but doesn't earn a cigar so you must ask yourself prior to departure, what happens if we depressurise and thus burn more fuel at a lower level on the way to Norfolk, what happens if we lose an engine for we are going to lose airspeed, where can we go, what about Noumea, what is the weather like there, what about Lord Howe even if it is a bit short, all the "whatevers"because that is exactly what a captain does. A captain must also have the strength of character if things are crook, even if it is a medivac, to weigh the lives of he and his crew against the life of a single person, do I possibly sacrifice the life of my crew and the company aeroplane to save one person when I might kill the lot of us?

And for the top comment so far...

Karen

Some facts about the incompetencies of our Aviation Safety regulator & investigative authorities, in particular, the behaviour of the band of brothers in management/director positions. There are some great people who work for them with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions have not been forthcoming with this hell of a saga.

* The CASA officer who suspended James's license was basically promoted to the position of ASTB Commissioner on a very healthy salary. Conflict of interest, you bet. (says he's removed, but really?)

* There are no Air Ambulance regulations to adhere to. Not then, not now. Safety you say? Eight years with no safety lessons learnt or much need regulations written is a direct insult on their own aviation philosophies.

* The ditching was not reported correctly to the ICAO. Not until 2015 when I called the Operational Safety Manager. Not on any statistics when presentations are given internationally, zero learning. It's like it never happened. Misleading? You decide.

* What did not happen was a crucial weather communication. What's a pilot to do, conjure clairvoyance powers?

* Pel-Air's 2008 Audit found that there were major insufficiencies with the operator. Regarding FRMS, International training, it's a public document, have a read. Quite sickening to know that this company was given the thumbs up from CASA to fly high risk Air Ambulance missions. This is why robust regulations are so important to have just in case a pilot needs to know what the hell he's suppose to follow. Their bread & butter was freight. How dare they allowed such flimsy guidelines to have continued for so long. Shame on them.

* The arrogant audacity of the airline and our government agencies has been beyond disgraceful regarding this matter. The connections are questionable.

* All must remember, the CEO of Pel-Air was an ex transport minister. Large political donations from Pel-Air at the time of the Senate. Prior to this was in 2003 for 3k. At the time of the Senate, over 300k.

The whole thing stinks to high hell and back again.

Yeah, Dom may have changed a few things if he could have, but he landed that Jet in pitch black, with a rolling ocean and we ALL lived.

The ones that need to be taken to task if real change is desired to enhance safety, are the players at the top of the Pel-Air matter. Starting from the Minister of Tpt at the time, Mr Albanese & his white aviation safety paper, all the bureaucrats that have been aware & Mr Chester who has done nothing!

Pel-Air is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to controversy within the Australian Aviation portfolio.

We were not protected by the safety agencies as there were no rules. What Dom did or didn't do is a very small part.

It is the Safety Agencies that need to be critiqued, investigated and taken to task.

MTF...P2