[Peetwo]

70 years on and the lessons lost? - Part II.

Using the findings/recommendations of the 70 year old VH-ANK Lutana plane crash would it be possible to do a simple comparison to modern day/21st century Australian aviation safety standards to assess whether the past identified safety issues have been properly safety risk mitigated?

As an example let's rewind to 2010 when the issue of CFIT accidents in radar monitored CTA was brought to our attention in the case of ATC approach control into Launceston airport. The following is a (posthumous -   ) extract from a 3 August, 2010 Ben Sandilands (Planetalking) article:

  

A sarcastic and opinionated look at air space reform

With no certainty at this stage as to which miserably mean spirited and visionless conservative party will win the August 21 election, it might be reasonable to tidy up a critical element in the radar and air space controversy that Dick Smith recently ignited. The central issue is that of dragging Australia into world’s best […]
BEN SANDILANDS
 
AUG 03, 2010
 
[size=large]With no certainty at this stage as to which miserably mean spirited and visionless conservative party will win the August 21 election, it might be reasonable to tidy up a critical element in the radar and air space controversy that Dick Smith recently ignited.

The central issue is that of dragging Australia into world’s best practice, and using active air traffic control, by air traffic controllers rather than busy pilots, to separate passenger airliners from other aircraft when using Australian airports.

It is a no brainer, but in a nation where pilots, airlines and regulators ferociously resisted black box flight recorders and weather radar, if not the use of radio and enclosed cockpits nearly 100 years ago, anything is possible when airline greed and pilot complicity coincide.

This is the recent political history of air space reform.

In 2004 John Anderson, the Minister for Transport in a Howard Government, issued a ministerial direction that radar control would be used to separate airliners approaching and departing a number of regional airports, including Launceston, where there was not just a serious incident on May 1, 2008, but subsequently, the release of a deficient ATSB report that made no safety recommendations and tip toed around the air space management issues it should have addressed.

Anderson was ignored.

Before the 2007 Federal election the Shadow Transport Minister, Martin Ferguson said:



Ferguson (in my opinion) was the tool of the airlines and the change resistant culture of aviation regulation in Australia.Dick Smith has shared with me a letter he wrote to the Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently concerning that policy switch, and his fear that if re-elected, a Labor government would NOT introduce the active separation of airliners using Launceston Airport. In that letter he says:



On July 21 we reported the ministerial direction made by the current Infrastructure and Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, that active control be provided 24/7/365 at Launceston.

On July 25 we reported that as indicated in the documentation from CASA that Minister Albanese relied upon, this was not the case, and on July 26 we reported that it really was the case. What we didn’t report at the time was that ‘some unfortunate errors in press release writing’ had caused the misunderstanding. My view is that in fact CASA was trying to pull the wool over Albanese’s eyes, by framing its recommendations to conform with change resistance in air space reform in this country, and that Albanese is not John Anderson, and that this was a serious error of judgement somewhere along the path from the air space regulation office in CASA to the Minister’s minders. Thus we have now reached a position where if re-elected Labor will do what Albanese promised to do, which is an historic advance for air safety in this country, and that if the Coalition is elected to government its Minister for Transport will carry out what it previously promised to do, but failed to enforce under John Anderson...

Now fast forward to 2015: Dick Smith says radar systems at Hobart and Launceston airports a safety risk

&.. 2017:  Dick & TASWAM revisited.

Now although "K" in the post following rightfully lambasted Dick for over reaching and in the process losing credibility (Wolf! Wolf! -   - there was an underlying 'safety' message that unfortunately IMO still remains live and not appropriately risk mitigated: 

..The real story is the ADS-B system; or the lack thereof. ATCO not trained, tested and qualified to use a very expensive, controversial system is not, of its self ‘dangerous’; but, as the story tells; they ain’t qualified – so they don’t use it. This, stand alone points directly at the truly dreadful state the ASA is in, it highlights the unseen additional stress and strain on the ATCO and speaks volumes on the total disorganization within the hugely expensive, loss making monopoly the ASA is. It is truly disgraceful that the ADS-B system is ‘running’ but ASA cannot fully exploit the efficiency benefits the system ‘could’ provide. 

Smith – “Mr Smith told the minister that if nothing changed, there would be a serious accident and it would take a royal commission to bring about better safety.”

Bollocks; counterproductive, emotive Bollocks. There is a great waste of time, public money and operating costs; it is a massive haemorrhage of resources and money – all trackable back to the large, shiny, expensive offices of a handful of ASA management types. Dick is wasting credibility and opportunity barking up the wrong tree; the Senate committee is not. The RRAT is reading the audits, analysing the programs and asking, quite correctly, WTF have you been playing at? A hundred million dollars a year monopoly, going broke, beggars belief; retrenching, not training ATCO, bringing in consultants to do the in house work payed by industry, that and taking long lunches and cozy weekend get a ways needs to be examined; in detail... 

Couple the "K" post with the series of ATCO ATSB REPCON's, recently brought to our attention by the ABC and Bumaye on the BITN thread (references starting from here: Fatigue and 'just culture' in a Harfwit world; & from Bumaye here: Another REPCON from ATSB website on ATC night-shift fatigue issues.) you begin to get a picture of how big and how close the holes are to aligning in the mouldy old (Airservices obfuscated and CASA oversighted) ATC Swiss Cheese...  

MTF...P2