[Peetwo]

Dots-n-dashes to: "How many minutes to bingo fuel??" 

Just putting the dots up here for now, from this Senate recommendation...



To this blast from the past...

Hansard quote:

Senator NASH: You made a judgement call that it was those things that you have just referred to, but what concerns me is that chances are that pilot is not going to get in a plane and do that again. One of the bigger issues that has emerged, surely, is this fault line in the provision of information from New Zealand. That is a set of circumstances that, at any period of time, could happen again, obviously with a resultant, potential, dire, catastrophic consequence. You identified early those pilot issues as being the most important. Isn't that rather presumptive given that this other issue has virtually been completely overlooked?

Mr Dolan : I would differ with you on the question of the overlooking of that issue. We took the current provisions of the AIP and the current arrangements for the provision of weather information by air traffic services. Those provisions in the AIP clearly say, 'Principal responsibility is with the pilot to acquire weather related information, including forecasts.' There is some provision for air traffic services to proactively draw attention to the existence of an updated forecast, normally in the case where aircraft are within an hour of their intended destination.

Senator NASH: We had Airservices Australia in here only two days ago, admitting that the provision of weather information from New Zealand was an issue that they are now going to address through the Pacific forum, which they were not going to do until it was raised through this forum. But you are saying it is not an issue. So they are saying it is an issue and that they are going to address it, but you are telling us today that you do not see that it is an issue.

Mr Dolan : We see a broader issue, which is: what is the support that is provided to flight crews en route in terms of assessing their situation, getting access to weather and other related information, applying that to the management of their fuel and so on? This is in a context where we saw in the AIP something that very clearly said that it is the responsibility of pilots to obtain information necessary to make operational decisions and that pilots will not automatically receive routine TAF information showing deteriorating weather conditions if they are en route to a location. That was the status quo with Airservices, with New Zealand and, as we understand, with Fiji.

Senator NASH: That is extraordinary.

Also throw in the BOM session 2 days before and the full version of the Staibed in the Dark and Harfwit bollocks:

Senator XENOPHON: Can you explain that? I am just trying to get the context here. What are our international obligations in regard to the sharing of hazardous weather information with other air traffic service organisations?

Mr Harfield : We have a monitoring system where the Bureau of Meteorology obviously monitors a number of locations around Australia and within the jurisdiction of the airspace that we manage. When we get information provided that is of a differing nature from the forecast, such as a hazardous weather event or the SPECI information that you mentioned previously, that information is then sent to the control positions. It is then relayed to the particular aircraft based on certain parameters where the weather has changed. We call that a hazard alerting service. What we would do, for example, if an aircraft which had a terminal area forecast for Sydney was flying between Melbourne and Sydney and the weather conditions rapidly changed is issue a hazard alert and notify all aircraft going to that destination of the change in circumstances.

From the Pelair Mark II ATSB final report:

• reviewing documentation from the air traffic services providers in Fiji and New Zealand about their policies and procedures for the provision of flight information, and how these were applied during the accident flight
  

"...During the flight, the weather conditions at Norfolk Island deteriorated below the landing minima. Air traffic services in Nadi and Auckland did not provide the flight crew with all the information that should have been provided. In addition, the flight crew did not request sufficient information prior to passing the point of no return (PNR), and the captain did not use an appropriate method for calculating the PNR. Related to these actions, the operator’s risk controls did not provide.."

Hansard link - HERE

Hmm...apparently the above was the sum total of the ATSB's findings in regards to the Senate recommendation IE there was no latent safety issues discovered and needing to be addressed...  

MTF...P2