The beginning of the end for the ATSB - 
Recently an associated PAIN member with considerable expertise in such matters as Human Factors in Aviation Accident Investigation (in particular FRMS) was tasked by the BRB with reviewing the bollocks PelAir MKII final report. Still a work in progress but the following quote from this associate's DRAFT summary report caught my attention
:
Personally I had never even contemplated joining the dots on the real implications of the ATSB becoming a 'statutory agency' in July 2009...
Here is a link for the amendment changes to the TSI Act which came into force in July 2009: TRANSPORT SAFETY INVESTIGATION AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2009 (NO. 1) (SLI NO 149 OF 2009)
However it wasn't till I stumbled across the former Minister for Non-aviation Albo's explanatory speech, for the introduction of the amendment, that the penny dropped that this was nothing more than Albo creating further 'degrees of separation' between himself, the government and anything remotely resembling responsibility and oversight of aviation safety - read it and weep...
Feb 12, 2009
Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009
The second Bill I introduce to the Parliament is the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009. As I stated when I introduced the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill, the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill fulfils undertakings in the Government’s National Aviation Policy Green Paper. The Bill will amend the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and enhance the independence of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) by establishing it as a statutory agency within my portfolio. The ATSB will have a Commission structure and the new body will come into being on 1 July 2009.
Australia has an impressive safety record and the ATSB’s accident investigation role is a fundamental part of Australia’s transport safety framework. Under the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003, the Executive Director of the ATSB already conducts systemic ‘no-blame’ investigations into aviation, marine and rail accidents and incidents with the objective of identifying contributing safety factors. The lessons arising from those investigations are used to prevent future accidents and incidents through the implementation of safety action by the industry and the Government. By making the ATSB a separate statutory agency, public confidence can be strengthened in Australia’s commitment to advance transport safety.
While I am confident that the ATSB has operated successfully as a Division of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, I believe that the future safety of Australian transport will be enhanced by this measure. In 2007 Mr Russell Miller AM was tasked by the then Government to review the relationship between the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the ATSB. In finding there was room for improvement in the way the agencies interact, Mr Miller addressed the ATSB’s governance structure and recommended that the Government move to clarify the ATSB’s independence as the national safety investigation agency. The Government accepted this key recommendation, which received strong support from industry.
Investigations that are independent of transport regulators, government policy makers, and the parties involved in an accident, are better positioned to avoid conflicts of interest and external interference. Consistent with international standards, this Bill leaves no doubt that investigations will be conducted without fear or favour and findings will be transparent and objective. Standard 5.4 of Annex 13 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention) states:
The accident investigation authority shall have independence in the conduct of the investigation and have unrestricted authority over its conduct.
Enhanced independence will result from a combination of factors. The ATSB will alone be responsible for administering the functions of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and exercising its investigation powers. There will be the capacity for the Minister to provide notice of his or her views on the strategic direction for the ATSB, to which the ATSB must have regard. However, other than the ability for the Minister to require the ATSB to investigate a particular matter, the ATSB will not be subject to a direction from anyone with respect to the exercise of its powers and functions.
The creation of a statutory agency will also give the ATSB discretion and responsibilities in its own right under the Public Service Act 1999 and Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 with respect to the management of its staff and resources. The ATSB will, therefore, have operational independence with respect to the exercise of its investigation powers and functional independence with respect to the administration of its resources.
The ATSB will consist of a full-time Chief Commissioner who will also be the Chief Executive Officer of the agency, and two part-time Commissioners. Commissioners will be appointed by the Minister and they will have an appropriate mix of skills and expertise. Additional Commissioners can be appointed as necessary for major investigations or where a particular skill or expertise is required. The powers in the Act will be vested in the ATSB for overarching responsibilities such as determining which transport safety matters to investigate and publishing reports. Powers relating to day to day investigation activities such as entry to an accident site premises will be vested in the Chief Commissioner. Both the Chief Commissioner and the ATSB will have the ability to delegate powers, as appropriate, for the purpose of carrying out investigations.
A new power that the ATSB will have to assist with its function of improving transport safety is the power to require responses within 90 days to any formal recommendations that it makes. This requirement will provide confidence that the ATSB’s safety recommendations are being properly considered and addressed.
In addition to the function of improving transport safety through investigations and communicating the results of those investigations, the ATSB will have a function involving cooperation. The ATSB will be required to cooperate with similar agencies around the world to ensure there is coordination when investigating a transport accident or incident in cases where another country is in some way connected. Domestically, the ATSB will be required to cooperate with Commonwealth and State and Territory agencies having functions concerning transport safety, or who are affected by the ATSB’s function of improving transport safety. Other agencies, such as the police or a transport safety regulator, are likely to have an interest in conducting investigations into some accidents or incidents that the ATSB is investigating. It is intended that those agencies should continue to be able to conduct their own separate investigations and that there be cooperation to allow this to occur. However, the ATSB will need to preserve the ‘no-blame’ nature of its investigations.
The Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 already states that it is not an object of the Act to apportion blame or provide the means to determine liability in relation to a transport accident or incident. With the translation of the objects of the current Act into the functions for the ATSB, the Act will state that apportioning blame and determining liability is not a function of the ATSB. Investigations that may result in punitive action will not necessarily have safety information freely flowing to them because there is an apprehension of a penalty by the persons subject to the investigation. This is recognised internationally by Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention and similar International Maritime Organisation instruments.
If the ATSB is to conduct systemic investigations, in the overriding interest of improving future safety, it must have access to all the available information. To preserve the free-flow of information to its investigations, the ATSB will need to maintain an appropriate degree of separation from processes that could result in a punitive outcome, an award of damages to one party against another or an adverse inference being made about a person subject to an investigation. The existing provisions in the Act for the protection of safety information, such as aviation cockpit voice recorders and witness statements, provide part of the framework for the ATSB to prevent itself being involved in the apportionment of blame or the determination of liability. Commissioners, ATSB staff members and consultants will be subject to the requirement to protect this type of information.
The Bill provides for transitional provisions so that investigations commenced under legislation existing before the new laws come into effect on 1 July 2009, can be continued by the ATSB. For investigations already completed, the ATSB or the Chief Commissioner, as required, will be able to exercise powers in relation to such things as the disclosure of information. The Bill also provides for the ATSB to perform the functions of the Executive Director under other legislation such as the Inspector of Transport Security Act 2006 and regulations made under the Navigation Act 1912 and the Air Navigation Act 1920 establishing confidential reporting schemes. With respect to the confidential reporting schemes, the Bill provides for a regulation making power to consolidate those schemes under the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 in the future.
The introduction of the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009 will serve to maintain and improve the already excellent safety record of the Australian aviation, marine and rail transport industries by establishing the ATSB as a separate statutory agency. Strengthening the independence of the ATSB in this way will facilitate better interaction with the transport industry and other agencies and demonstrate the Government’s strong commitment to ongoing and important improvements in Australia’s transport safety framework.
Now contemplate that with those ministerial weasel words and then the 'inconvenient ditching' of VH-NGA, how the exact opposite has occurred with the establishment of the ATSB as a 'statutory agency' -
Is it any wonder that Albo went scampering away from all responsibility for addressing the damning findings of the Senate PelAir inquiry prior to the 2013 Federal election.
Here is a reminder from the late Ben Sandilands of Albo's gutless obfuscation tactics in responding to the PelAir cover-up Senate report:
Aug 28, 2013
Pel-Air on prime time TV snares Minister’s false statement
Ben Sandilands — Editor of Plane Talking
The Minister for Transport Anthony Albanese was caught out on 7 News tonight in a report by Chris Reason on the festering sore that is the proven hush up by CASA and the ATSB of all of the circumstances that were relevant to the crash of a Pel-Air operated air ambulance flight near Norfolk Island in 2009.
Albanese said he was unable to take action over a damning Senate committee report on lies and deceits of Australia’s two air safety authorities because parliament went into caretaker mode.
Minister, this is total unmitigated rubbish. Caretaker mode began on 5 August.
On 29 May after consultation with your department Plane Talking published this story as to the urgency with which you and your departmental head Mike Mrdak were claimed to be responding to the unanimous report of the Senate Committee inquiry into aviation safety investigations with particular reference to the performance of the ATSB (the safety investigator) and CASA (the safety regulator).
At that inquiry the Director of Safety at CASA, John McCormick, admitted to withholding an internal audit by CASA that found that the accident was preventable if CASA had actually carried out its duties and obligations in law in relation to the oversight of Pel-Air.
Mr McCormick also apologised for his actions, which the committee has referred to the Australian Federal Police to resolve whether or not it was action that constituted an offence under the Transport Safety Investigations Act of 2003. (If the words in the act mean what they say, McCormick broke the law.)
The committee went on to devote an entire chapter of its report into its lack of confidence in the testimony given by the chief commissioner for the ATSB, Martin Dolan. The committee’s findings, made by a panel drawn from Labor, the Coalition and the Greens, was unanimous in its findings.
It also recommended, among other things, that the ATSB reconsider its final accident report and in the process retrieve the data recorder from the wreckage of the jet, which lies at a recoverable depth on the sea floor near Norfolk Island where it came to rest after being ditched immediately before it ran out of fuel. (All six persons on board were subsequently rescued by a fishing boat in the middle of the night).
The ATSB has deliberately chosen not to recover the data, which carries the distinct possibility of proving that the pilot did not receive correct meteorological information before flying the jet to a position where it could no longer divert to an alternative airport in Noumea or Fiji should it be unable to land at Norfolk Island for a refueling stop.
The ATSB failed to honor its international obligations to make safety recommendations in relation to the failure on board the ditched jet of all of the safety equipment to perform as intended. It regarded the eventual discovery that CASA had found Pel-Air to be in breach of dozens of safety requirements at the time of the crash as ‘immaterial’, and it framed its final report to visit the entire blame for the accident on the captain Dominic James, who was central to the 7 News report, which should be readily found by a search query on the internet later tonight.
As Mick Quinn, the former deputy chief executive officer of CASA told Chris Reason on 7 News tonight, this corrupted and untruthful circus performance by the safety bodies in relation to the Pel-Air investigation has destroyed Australia’s reputation as a first class nation when it comes to the administration of air safety.
Minister, you are personally responsible for this. You allowed commitments to be made on your behalf, which were not honoured, and you have demonstrated contempt for the Senate of Australia by not responding to the committee’s recommendations within 90 days.
This means you have not acted in a timely manner to correct or restore the integrity of the aviation safety authorities, and that means the safety of Australian air travellers, and those of foreign airlines and their passengers using our air space and airports, is no longer a given.
On 30 May Plane Talking reported on the intention of the department of Infrastructure and Transport to ‘ride out’ the controversy over the disgraceful report issed by the ATSB into this accident.
Minister, surely you are not a party to ‘riding out’ critically important air safety issues? The world is unlikely to let Australia get away with such a poor attitude, as explained in this more recent report.
If the Minister can say so during caretaker mode, what was he thinking when he gave his misleading answer about his inability to repond to these matters in the Chris Reason interview?
Was it amnesia? Or did he think no one would notice that what was broadcast tonight was in conflict with his position at the end of May? & Ref - CH7 Chis Reason link: https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/18694051/pilots-scathing-attack-on-air-safety-agencies/
Fast forwarding to today's incarnation of the ATSB and we can see why it is that Greg Hood feels so emboldened to threaten singing like a canary if anyone dares to threaten his 6D Chester gifted fiefdom -
MTF...P2
Recently an associated PAIN member with considerable expertise in such matters as Human Factors in Aviation Accident Investigation (in particular FRMS) was tasked by the BRB with reviewing the bollocks PelAir MKII final report. Still a work in progress but the following quote from this associate's DRAFT summary report caught my attention
: Quote: • Communication-misunderstandings:
- The responsibilities of CASA and the ATSB were never resolved, even though the ATSB had become a separate statutory agency in July 2009. As a result the ATSB did not collect sufficient information from Pel Air.
Personally I had never even contemplated joining the dots on the real implications of the ATSB becoming a 'statutory agency' in July 2009...
Here is a link for the amendment changes to the TSI Act which came into force in July 2009: TRANSPORT SAFETY INVESTIGATION AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2009 (NO. 1) (SLI NO 149 OF 2009)
However it wasn't till I stumbled across the former Minister for Non-aviation Albo's explanatory speech, for the introduction of the amendment, that the penny dropped that this was nothing more than Albo creating further 'degrees of separation' between himself, the government and anything remotely resembling responsibility and oversight of aviation safety - read it and weep...
Feb 12, 2009
Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009
The second Bill I introduce to the Parliament is the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009. As I stated when I introduced the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill, the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill fulfils undertakings in the Government’s National Aviation Policy Green Paper. The Bill will amend the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and enhance the independence of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) by establishing it as a statutory agency within my portfolio. The ATSB will have a Commission structure and the new body will come into being on 1 July 2009.
Australia has an impressive safety record and the ATSB’s accident investigation role is a fundamental part of Australia’s transport safety framework. Under the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003, the Executive Director of the ATSB already conducts systemic ‘no-blame’ investigations into aviation, marine and rail accidents and incidents with the objective of identifying contributing safety factors. The lessons arising from those investigations are used to prevent future accidents and incidents through the implementation of safety action by the industry and the Government. By making the ATSB a separate statutory agency, public confidence can be strengthened in Australia’s commitment to advance transport safety.
While I am confident that the ATSB has operated successfully as a Division of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, I believe that the future safety of Australian transport will be enhanced by this measure. In 2007 Mr Russell Miller AM was tasked by the then Government to review the relationship between the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the ATSB. In finding there was room for improvement in the way the agencies interact, Mr Miller addressed the ATSB’s governance structure and recommended that the Government move to clarify the ATSB’s independence as the national safety investigation agency. The Government accepted this key recommendation, which received strong support from industry.
Investigations that are independent of transport regulators, government policy makers, and the parties involved in an accident, are better positioned to avoid conflicts of interest and external interference. Consistent with international standards, this Bill leaves no doubt that investigations will be conducted without fear or favour and findings will be transparent and objective. Standard 5.4 of Annex 13 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention) states:
The accident investigation authority shall have independence in the conduct of the investigation and have unrestricted authority over its conduct.
Enhanced independence will result from a combination of factors. The ATSB will alone be responsible for administering the functions of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and exercising its investigation powers. There will be the capacity for the Minister to provide notice of his or her views on the strategic direction for the ATSB, to which the ATSB must have regard. However, other than the ability for the Minister to require the ATSB to investigate a particular matter, the ATSB will not be subject to a direction from anyone with respect to the exercise of its powers and functions.
The creation of a statutory agency will also give the ATSB discretion and responsibilities in its own right under the Public Service Act 1999 and Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 with respect to the management of its staff and resources. The ATSB will, therefore, have operational independence with respect to the exercise of its investigation powers and functional independence with respect to the administration of its resources.
The ATSB will consist of a full-time Chief Commissioner who will also be the Chief Executive Officer of the agency, and two part-time Commissioners. Commissioners will be appointed by the Minister and they will have an appropriate mix of skills and expertise. Additional Commissioners can be appointed as necessary for major investigations or where a particular skill or expertise is required. The powers in the Act will be vested in the ATSB for overarching responsibilities such as determining which transport safety matters to investigate and publishing reports. Powers relating to day to day investigation activities such as entry to an accident site premises will be vested in the Chief Commissioner. Both the Chief Commissioner and the ATSB will have the ability to delegate powers, as appropriate, for the purpose of carrying out investigations.
A new power that the ATSB will have to assist with its function of improving transport safety is the power to require responses within 90 days to any formal recommendations that it makes. This requirement will provide confidence that the ATSB’s safety recommendations are being properly considered and addressed.
In addition to the function of improving transport safety through investigations and communicating the results of those investigations, the ATSB will have a function involving cooperation. The ATSB will be required to cooperate with similar agencies around the world to ensure there is coordination when investigating a transport accident or incident in cases where another country is in some way connected. Domestically, the ATSB will be required to cooperate with Commonwealth and State and Territory agencies having functions concerning transport safety, or who are affected by the ATSB’s function of improving transport safety. Other agencies, such as the police or a transport safety regulator, are likely to have an interest in conducting investigations into some accidents or incidents that the ATSB is investigating. It is intended that those agencies should continue to be able to conduct their own separate investigations and that there be cooperation to allow this to occur. However, the ATSB will need to preserve the ‘no-blame’ nature of its investigations.
The Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 already states that it is not an object of the Act to apportion blame or provide the means to determine liability in relation to a transport accident or incident. With the translation of the objects of the current Act into the functions for the ATSB, the Act will state that apportioning blame and determining liability is not a function of the ATSB. Investigations that may result in punitive action will not necessarily have safety information freely flowing to them because there is an apprehension of a penalty by the persons subject to the investigation. This is recognised internationally by Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention and similar International Maritime Organisation instruments.
If the ATSB is to conduct systemic investigations, in the overriding interest of improving future safety, it must have access to all the available information. To preserve the free-flow of information to its investigations, the ATSB will need to maintain an appropriate degree of separation from processes that could result in a punitive outcome, an award of damages to one party against another or an adverse inference being made about a person subject to an investigation. The existing provisions in the Act for the protection of safety information, such as aviation cockpit voice recorders and witness statements, provide part of the framework for the ATSB to prevent itself being involved in the apportionment of blame or the determination of liability. Commissioners, ATSB staff members and consultants will be subject to the requirement to protect this type of information.
The Bill provides for transitional provisions so that investigations commenced under legislation existing before the new laws come into effect on 1 July 2009, can be continued by the ATSB. For investigations already completed, the ATSB or the Chief Commissioner, as required, will be able to exercise powers in relation to such things as the disclosure of information. The Bill also provides for the ATSB to perform the functions of the Executive Director under other legislation such as the Inspector of Transport Security Act 2006 and regulations made under the Navigation Act 1912 and the Air Navigation Act 1920 establishing confidential reporting schemes. With respect to the confidential reporting schemes, the Bill provides for a regulation making power to consolidate those schemes under the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 in the future.
The introduction of the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009 will serve to maintain and improve the already excellent safety record of the Australian aviation, marine and rail transport industries by establishing the ATSB as a separate statutory agency. Strengthening the independence of the ATSB in this way will facilitate better interaction with the transport industry and other agencies and demonstrate the Government’s strong commitment to ongoing and important improvements in Australia’s transport safety framework.
Now contemplate that with those ministerial weasel words and then the 'inconvenient ditching' of VH-NGA, how the exact opposite has occurred with the establishment of the ATSB as a 'statutory agency' -
Is it any wonder that Albo went scampering away from all responsibility for addressing the damning findings of the Senate PelAir inquiry prior to the 2013 Federal election.
Here is a reminder from the late Ben Sandilands of Albo's gutless obfuscation tactics in responding to the PelAir cover-up Senate report:
Aug 28, 2013
Pel-Air on prime time TV snares Minister’s false statement
Ben Sandilands — Editor of Plane Talking
The Minister for Transport Anthony Albanese was caught out on 7 News tonight in a report by Chris Reason on the festering sore that is the proven hush up by CASA and the ATSB of all of the circumstances that were relevant to the crash of a Pel-Air operated air ambulance flight near Norfolk Island in 2009.
Albanese said he was unable to take action over a damning Senate committee report on lies and deceits of Australia’s two air safety authorities because parliament went into caretaker mode.
Minister, this is total unmitigated rubbish. Caretaker mode began on 5 August.
On 29 May after consultation with your department Plane Talking published this story as to the urgency with which you and your departmental head Mike Mrdak were claimed to be responding to the unanimous report of the Senate Committee inquiry into aviation safety investigations with particular reference to the performance of the ATSB (the safety investigator) and CASA (the safety regulator).
At that inquiry the Director of Safety at CASA, John McCormick, admitted to withholding an internal audit by CASA that found that the accident was preventable if CASA had actually carried out its duties and obligations in law in relation to the oversight of Pel-Air.
Mr McCormick also apologised for his actions, which the committee has referred to the Australian Federal Police to resolve whether or not it was action that constituted an offence under the Transport Safety Investigations Act of 2003. (If the words in the act mean what they say, McCormick broke the law.)
The committee went on to devote an entire chapter of its report into its lack of confidence in the testimony given by the chief commissioner for the ATSB, Martin Dolan. The committee’s findings, made by a panel drawn from Labor, the Coalition and the Greens, was unanimous in its findings.
It also recommended, among other things, that the ATSB reconsider its final accident report and in the process retrieve the data recorder from the wreckage of the jet, which lies at a recoverable depth on the sea floor near Norfolk Island where it came to rest after being ditched immediately before it ran out of fuel. (All six persons on board were subsequently rescued by a fishing boat in the middle of the night).
The ATSB has deliberately chosen not to recover the data, which carries the distinct possibility of proving that the pilot did not receive correct meteorological information before flying the jet to a position where it could no longer divert to an alternative airport in Noumea or Fiji should it be unable to land at Norfolk Island for a refueling stop.
The ATSB failed to honor its international obligations to make safety recommendations in relation to the failure on board the ditched jet of all of the safety equipment to perform as intended. It regarded the eventual discovery that CASA had found Pel-Air to be in breach of dozens of safety requirements at the time of the crash as ‘immaterial’, and it framed its final report to visit the entire blame for the accident on the captain Dominic James, who was central to the 7 News report, which should be readily found by a search query on the internet later tonight.
As Mick Quinn, the former deputy chief executive officer of CASA told Chris Reason on 7 News tonight, this corrupted and untruthful circus performance by the safety bodies in relation to the Pel-Air investigation has destroyed Australia’s reputation as a first class nation when it comes to the administration of air safety.
Minister, you are personally responsible for this. You allowed commitments to be made on your behalf, which were not honoured, and you have demonstrated contempt for the Senate of Australia by not responding to the committee’s recommendations within 90 days.
This means you have not acted in a timely manner to correct or restore the integrity of the aviation safety authorities, and that means the safety of Australian air travellers, and those of foreign airlines and their passengers using our air space and airports, is no longer a given.
On 30 May Plane Talking reported on the intention of the department of Infrastructure and Transport to ‘ride out’ the controversy over the disgraceful report issed by the ATSB into this accident.
Minister, surely you are not a party to ‘riding out’ critically important air safety issues? The world is unlikely to let Australia get away with such a poor attitude, as explained in this more recent report.
If the Minister can say so during caretaker mode, what was he thinking when he gave his misleading answer about his inability to repond to these matters in the Chris Reason interview?
Was it amnesia? Or did he think no one would notice that what was broadcast tonight was in conflict with his position at the end of May? & Ref - CH7 Chis Reason link: https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/18694051/pilots-scathing-attack-on-air-safety-agencies/
Fast forwarding to today's incarnation of the ATSB and we can see why it is that Greg Hood feels so emboldened to threaten singing like a canary if anyone dares to threaten his 6D Chester gifted fiefdom -
MTF...P2