[Peetwo]

PelAir MKII & the quest for IP: cont/-

Quote from this week's SBG: Quantity v Quality. 

...It is small wonder that the aviation world is looking more and more to the Senate and the Senators to lend a hand and get a rope on the lunatics. The ATSB were emasculated during the Lockhart River affair and CASA dodged a large calibre bullet; many years later we have the Pel-Air and Norfolk Island farrago. The total cost of this debacle is staggering, the quality of the result disgraceful; but by far the worst is total zero improvement in system or safety lesson of value; to anyone. When the dust has settled a long, hard look, in terms of value for investment will be taken of this almost unbelievable saga. Perhaps by then there will be a minister who actually gives a damn and finally matters aeronautical will take a turn for the better. Do not hold your breathe…….

Not sure how accurate the estimates are but there are some older wiser BRB heads who reckon that the total cost (so far) for the PelAir cover-up is North of 50 million Aussie dollars. That equates to a conservative figure of $10 million per 100 pages of the PelAir MKII final report. The question is will this 531 page report prove to be the catalyst for the ATSB getting back to AAI (ICAO Annex 13) ToRs and rediscovering it's investigative probity - so far I think not...

However to give Hoody's posse the benefit of the doubt, let us continue with reviewing the ATSB identified safety issues and the recommendations, suggestions for DIP proactive risk mitigation.

Starting with this from the MH370 forum: MH370, PelAir & the ELT connection

Via RT: Many have speculated that MH 370’s ELT failed to send out a signal when the plane disappeared from radar screens on March 8 last year, somewhere near Indonesia, because it had crashed into water. If the ELT had worked, authorities could have avoided the 18-month search that has cost over $100 million dollars so far, and which may only now be coming to an end.

---

&..

From page 31 of PelAir cover-up MKII final report:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773678/ao..._final.pdf

..During the ditching impact, the aircraft’s 406-MHz beacon emergency locator transmitter (ELT) transmitted one alert signal. Although the alert was detected by a geostationary satellite, the single alert was insufficient for the search and rescue services to determine the location of the ELT...

  
Okay apparently the boys'n'gals on the coalface did identify this safety issue as being significant. The executive/commissioners agreed and didn't deem the issue one that needed to be PC'd...

Extract from page 386-387:

Additional safety action regarding emergency locator transmitters

Satellite detection of emergency locator transmitters
Although unrelated to the circumstances of this accident, during 2003 the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme had commenced developing the Medium-altitude Earth Orbiting Satellite System for Search and Rescue (MEOSAR). The system consisted of search and rescue signal repeaters installed on the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) of Europe, Russia and the USA; complementing the existing Low-altitude Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites from the LEOSAR and GEOSAR systems.

Once fully operational, the MEOSAR system will be capable of near-real-time transmission of distress messages and if the distress beacon is within coverage of three or more GNSS SAR repeater-equipped satellites, an independently calculated position of the distress beacon location.

With a full satellite constellation, it will be possible to calculate the location of the distress beacon within 10 minutes, 95 per cent of the time. The MEOSAR system will facilitate additional enhancements, such as a return-link-service to suitably equipped distress beacons acknowledging receipt of the distress message.

The Cospas-Sarsat MEOSAR system was not operational in 2009. A demonstration and
evaluation phase commenced in 2013 and in late 2016, the system achieved an early operational capability for search and rescue agencies. Full operational capability of the MEOSAR system is anticipated during 2018.

Use of emergency locator transmitters
In May 2013, the ATSB published a research report titled A review of the effectiveness of emergency locator transmitters in aviation accidents (available from www.atsb.gov.au). The research report provided an overview of the use of emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) and provided basic quantitative evidence of their effectiveness. Analysis of ATSB’s aviation occurrence database from 1993 to 2012 indicated ELTs functioned as intended in about 40–60 per cent of accidents in which their activation was expected. In addition, ELT activations accounted for the first notification to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) in about 15 per cent of incidents and ELT activations had been directly responsible for saving an average of four lives per year.

In accidents where ELTs did not work effectively (or not at all), it was found a number of factors could affect their performance. Those factors included incorrect installation, lack of water proofing, lack of fire proofing, disconnection of the co-axial antenna cable during impact, damage and/or removal of the antenna during impact and an aircraft coming to rest inverted following impact.

The safety messages highlighted in the research report included:

- pilots and operators of general aviation and low-capacity aircraft needed to be aware that a fixed fuselage mounted ELT cannot be relied upon to function in the types of accidents in which they were intended to be useful.
- the effectiveness of ELTs in increasing occupant safety and assisting SAR efforts could be enhanced by using a GPS-enabled ELT, using an ELT with a newer 3-axis g-switch, ensuring it was correctly installed, ensuring the beacon was registered with AMSA and activating the beacon pre-emptively if a forced landing or ditching was imminent.
    - carrying a personal locator beacon (PLB) in place of (or as well as) a fixed ELT would most likely only be beneficial to safety if it was carried on the person, rather than being fixed or stowed elsewhere in the aircraft.

Additional information regarding distress beacons
AMSA’s booklet Distress Beacons and MMSI Information contains important information and recommendations about the use of distress beacons and their use by persons in life threatening situations (available from www.amsa.gov.au). It provides information on the types of distress beacon and the advantages of beacons that are GNSS equipped. AMSA recommends the use of GNSS-equipped beacons because they provide the quickest and most accurate alerts.

Advice for using distress beacon includes that when in grave or imminent danger, two-way communication (such as phone or two-way radio) is the most effective means of communicating. If two-way communication is not available, then a distress beacon should be activated.

AMSA also recommended that personal locator beacons are physically carried on the person or within easy reach.

Credit where credit is due, that is a good proactive and monitored response to an identified safety issue.

However this identified safety issue obviously predates the PelAir re-investigation. Since May 2013 we have had several high profile aviation accident investigations, including the ongoing MH370 investigation, where the ELT has either failed or not operated as advertised.

Yet the ATSB PelAir reinvestigation report does not expand to include references to these AAI's; nor does the report recognise ICAO and other signatory States; or aviation stakeholders (like NASA above) on proactively addressing the obvious fallibilities of the current technology ELTs.

Reference PelAir MKII post: The hidden agenda of PelAir MKII IIC Dr Walker 

Whatever the reasons for these ATSB administrative glitches it would also appear that there is some serious issues with the ICAO iSTAR receiving office, remembering that the examples mentioned above were only 3 of many that I was able to identify as not existing/filed on the iSTAR/ECCAIRs databases.

Could it be that there are still 'taxonomy' and/or compatibility issues with the current ATSB SIIMS database and the forwarding of safety and accident reports being sent to the ICAO iSTAR database office? Why wouldn't a State endorsed Annex 13 AAI at least check that there are no issues at the receiving end of some important forwarded Annex 13 compliant reports? After all we are talking about the integrity and security of valuable safety information that deserves to be properly disseminated to the worldwide aviation industry as per the good intent and philosophy of ICAO Annex 19.

From the previous post #209, the above reference post and the closed off ELT issue; we are beginning to see a trend that bizarrely the ATSB was a closed shop that did not encourage any outside input, any new information/evidence; nor did they want to address any additional externally identified safety issues....



TBC...P2