[Peetwo]

Additional Estimates Hansard is out -

Well at least there is one thing that Senator Barry O'bfuscate can't put a go slow on and that's the Hansard...

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee
(Senate-Monday, 26 February 2018)

• INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PORTFOLIO
  
  

Update: Tabled docs & more video. -

Australian Transport Safety Bureau
RPAS data Feb 2018
26/02/2018 PDF 625KB

Airservices Australia
OneSky Statement
26/02/2018 PDF 601KB

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Dr Steven Kennedy, Secretary, Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities

Notification of Differences to ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices
22/02/2018 PDF 379KB

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Hmm...funny parts of that blurb from Secretary Kennedy sound very familiar...

Ah yes I see Lachie is referenced at the top of Secretary Kennedy's correspondence to the Chair: Dear Lachie  

MTF...P2  

Ps Off the UP Lead Balloon provides a frank assessment review of both the ATSB & CASA Estimate's sessions:

Classification of Operations and ‘Safety’  #1

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CASA frequently proves the rule that there’s no such thing as unutterable nonsense. The most recent proof is its performance before Senate Estimates on 26 February. (That performance also shows that the current DAS has been drinking - or has perhaps been force-fed - plentiful quantities of the “safety of air navigation” rhetoric Kool-Aide.) (The Hansard should be available here: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary...onal_estimates. I haven’t worked out how to post the video.)

Apparently an operator was chock full of pilots who were “competent” but not “proficient”. They were not “proficient” because they had not done proficiency checks frequently enough in accordance with that most Orwellian of aviation regulatory tools: the Operations Manual (the content of which is not “approved” by CASA but instead effectively dictated by CASA for hapless small operators).

It appears that the periodicities for recurrent training included in an Operations Manual on the basis of someone’s strong opinion become an objective truth with automatic negative safety consequences if not complied with. Go figure.

This apparently meant the pilots were not sufficiently ‘safe’ to engage complex jets in commercial operations. However, the pilots were apparently sufficiently ‘safe’ to engage the same aircraft in private operations or conduct “mercy flights”. Go figure.

This distinction was justified by CASA on the basis of the usual “knowledge and acceptance of risk” fiction.

Apparently, if a non-proficient pilot has an emergency in a complex jet that s/he can’t handle during a private operation or “mercy flight”, the people killed on the ground know of and accept that risk. Not so if it was a commercial operation. Go figure.

I’m sure all POB the private flights would know the probabilities of the PIC having an emergency that s/he couldn’t handle at the proficiency check due date minus 30 days, and the probabilities of the PIC having an emergency that s/he couldn’t handle at the proficiency due date plus 30 days. The number of zeros after the decimal point in the percentages of each would have been no impediment to a fully-informed and rational assessment and acceptance of the risk. Punters boarding the aircraft on a commercial flight know neither percentage but - apparently through magic or osmosis - accept exposure to the first level of risk but do not accept exposure to the second level of risk. Go figure.

The valid practical point made in the RQAC v CASA Federal Court matter - that a pilot doesn’t become a dangerous Gumby automatically after the due date for some recurrent test/training/check becomes due - was effectively dismissed by CASA. The dismissal was on the basis of the legal difference between a failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed as a condition on an ATO delegation on the one hand, and a failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed as a consequence of the obligation to comply with an Operations Manual on the other. The latter is a breach of - gasp - the law.

I’m guessing that if the operator had unilaterally amended its Operations Manual, under CAR 215(5), so as to extend the periods between proficiency checks and turn the breach into a non-breach, the pilots wouldn’t have magically become ‘safer’ and, more importantly, CASA would have had a conniption and directed the operator under CAR 215(3) to change it back - thus demonstrating that the content of Operations Manuals is effectively dictated by CASA on the basis of someone’s strong opinion.

Apparently an aircraft ‘knows’ and a pilot’s biology ‘knows’ the difference between the pilot’s failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed as a condition on a delegation and the pilot’s failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed through an Operations Manual, with the latter producing a ‘less safe’ outcome. Go figure.

Struggling with the evident heavy burden of the safety of air navigation on his shoulders, the current DAS described the risk he took in granting an exemption to enable the least non-proficient pilots to lawfully engage in a commercial operation. I’m sure the DAS had, at his fingertips, the probability figures of the least non-proficient pilots having an emergency s/he couldn’t handle compared with a proficient pilot, as well as the probability at which an operation changes from ‘safe’ to ‘unsafe’.

The scariest thing - the scariest thing - is that they all appear earnestly to believe the nonsense they utter has a rational and causal connection with positive safety outcomes, and that they accordingly make a net positive difference to aviation safety.

Meanwhile, in ATSB land...

CASA’s performance followed the ATSB’s appearance, during the opening statement of which the Chief Commissioner went through the long list of general aviation tragedies in the last 18 or so months. The question whether there might be any causal connection between the spike in general aviation fatalities and the activities of the regulator didn’t arise. Go figure.

Oddly in my view (based on watching many, many Estimates hearings), the ATSB flick-passed questions about the second go at the NGA ditching investigation report to a lawyer. Apparently the responsible technical expert wasn’t available because s/he is based in Brisbane. Even if that’s a legitimate excuse for not fronting the Committee, one wonders why the ‘fallback’ was ATSB’s lawyer.

When asked whether NGA would have had enough fuel to make it to an alternate after arrival at YSNF, even if NGA had departed Apia with full fuel, the correct answer - no - was not forthcoming. The extra ‘thinking time’ and increased probabilities of getting a ‘lucky break’ in the weather at YSNF arising from full fuel were irrelevant to the specific question asked. It’s disappointing that the correct answer to the actual question wasn’t provided. But go figure.

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& Vref in response:

I believe you would be referring to the requirements of CAR217, for certain operators to have a CASA approved check and training organisation, which must-as a minimum- provide 2 checks of competency in a 12 month period? That requirement is not someone’s opinion, it is law, the ops manual must have procedures that- if followed- will ensure compliance. If an operator can’t comply with this basic requirement and lets not one, but every single one of its pilots checks lapse, why should CASA let them continue to operate, and take the work away from everyone else who do spend the money on the checks and monitoring programs, sometimes sending their pilots overseas to jump in the sim? One pilot falling out of currency is one thing, every pilot being uncurrent is completely different.

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& LB in reply:

Good legal points, vref. I was trying to make points about the substance of the circumstances and the safety fictions on the basis of which the classification of operations scheme and other aspects of the regulatory regime are justified.

I’d merely note on your legal points that:

(1) The ‘basic’ competency check periodicities in 217(3) were not etched in the stone tablets brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai. They are the manifestation of a human being’s strong opinion.

(2) 217 contains discretions and powers that result in CASA being able to dictate, on the basis of a human being’s strong opinion, the operators who must have a C&T system and the system’s content. “any other operator CASA specifies”. “The training and checking organisation and the tests and checks provided for therein shall be subject to the approval of CASA.”

Interestingly, CASA did not stop the operator in question from operating. CASA did not suspend the operator’s AOC or any of the pilots’ licences or ratings. CASA took the view that the operator was ‘safe enough’ to carry out private operations and “mercy flights”. So far as I can tell, the operator was in breach of CARs 215 and 217. What regulatory action should flow from that should depend on the substance of the safety risk. I imagine that the operator was so sh*t scared of the ‘nuclear option’ that it ‘grounded’ itself.

Unfortunately, the elephant in the Committee room was never spotted by the Committee: The vast difference between the regulator’s efforts to assist Pel Air to address the deficiencies discovered in Pel Air after the NGA ditching, on the one hand, and the regulator’s efforts to assist this operator to address the deficiencies discovered in this operator. Go figure. (Dominic James and others would no doubt be struck with the irony of the fact that the deficiencies were discovered in this operator during an attempt to conduct a flight so as to bring an end to the administrative torture being committed on Dom as a consequence of the NGA ditching.)

And the number of fatal accidents in GA over the last 18 or so months? Move on, nothing to see here.