[Peetwo]

Hoody: "Pick a trend any trend??" -  

Warning: Longish post.

Half steam GD – but keep it coming. We have work to do this day.

Hood was an important cog within the CASA machinery; he had the juice, but not the balls to deny many of the more fanciful Chambers confections, particularly in regard to both Airtex and Pel-Air. Furthermore when he did finally screw his courage ‘to the sticking point’ he was not concerned about the damage inflicted on industry, but for his own legal position in relation to the documents he had signed. This conflict of interest is not perceived; but very real and very ugly. No matter, the top job at ATSB is now his; the shambles at CASA set aside in the hope that Hood may redeem himself and return the ATSB to a useful agency. The PAIN associates understood the pressures of the McComic years; and, without too much debate, voted to give Hood benefit of the doubt.  

The sickening ATSB response to what are, potentially, serious incidents has ignited fury. For the benefit of our political advisors: I shall try to explain why.

Aircraft wing and tail sections are not ‘voids’ they are places where high tension electrical current, hydraulic fluid at high pressure, hot air bled from the turbine and flight control systems are housed; all crammed together; or, enclosed within inaccessible parts of the aircraft structure. There is a huge amount of jet fuel contained within the airframe; in the wings, in the ‘belly’, even in the tail of the 747 (10 tons of it). Isolated and undisturbed, these systems function beautifully, reliably and extremely safely. They were designed to do this, tested to ensure this, carefully manufactured to standard, fitted correctly and tested, for serviceability, regularly.  The airframe itself is designed to withstand incredible loads and stresses – but not from every direction and can be bent by forces applied in the ‘wrong’ direction – seriously bent.

A ruptured, pressurised hydraulic line can do an incredible amount of damage, it can maim and kill. Same –same a ‘bleed air’ line.  A severed electric cable has the potential to start a fire – even in relatively benign Jet fuel. A damaged external flight control has the potential to have created unseen faults further along the circuit. These are the reasons we try, very hard, not to bump into other aircraft or have other aircraft bang into us. This is not two ladies in four wheel drives having an insurance spat in the carpark. It is a serious event when two aircraft collide; it may, once every second pancake Tuesday happen. But when ‘tarmac’ incidents become a regular events and aircraft are damaged by ancillary equipment; it is time someone got off their arse, found out why and get it stopped.

This, as I see it, is Hoods job. Passing it all off as ‘unfortunate’ and a light contact defines a lack of interest and a subservience to ‘other’ entities. In short; we are seeing the beginnings of the same creature that delighted CASA. I can only agree with the sentiments of both P7 and GD. Fix it or fuck off Greg.

P7 - Only a ‘twiddle’ as “K” would call it; can't be buggering about with  stats to back it  – but it seems to me that ‘push-back’ and ‘ground’ incidents’ have been on the increase for a while now. There is a distinct pattern in the ‘dots’ which suggests something has changed. Before the bottom line became so much more important than common sense; there were not so many touchy-feely incidents.  So what changed, who allowed a relaxation, why; and, just who influenced that relaxation?

The statistics clearly define this 'relaxation' – why FDS has the ATSB allowed this to become the unquestioned, norm – unchallenged?  Perhaps Hoody can now earn his corn by answering these questions. I am sick, to the back teeth, of ‘financial expediency’ trumping operational good sense.

Hood has a ‘get-out-of jail’ free card from the Senate – time to earn that trust. Start with ‘why’, suddenly we have a heap of “Light Contacts”. Mate! - there ain’t no such ducking thing: not when 150 + tons of fuel loaded machinery collide @ even 10 knots (5 each for the uninformed); the Kinetic energy, as described by Newton, defies the best run “beyond all reason” model, statistically unchallenged  garbage. It never happened before because it was never allowed to happen – ya duckin' halfwit.

Get real – sort it out; or, alternatively - fuck off.

GD:-

I've dissected Tom. (I hope it didn't hurt mate?)

Toms twiddle sums up the situation perfectly. I've cherry picked just a couple of points out of it but they are points that on the surface are very basic, but if you dig deep into Tom's comments you will come to some very ugly and concerning conclusions;

Nugget 1;
"it seems to me that ‘push-back’ and ‘ground’ incidents’ have been on the increase for a while now. There is a distinct pattern in the ‘dots’ which suggests something has changed. Before the bottom line became so much more important than common sense; there were not so many touchy-feely incidents.  So what changed, who allowed a relaxation, why; and, just who influenced that relaxation?"

Absolutely. There were NEVER so many incidents in the pre-LCC days. Back then only a qualified aircraft engineer headsetted an aircraft. Most were 'long in the tooth' Gingerbeers who were accompanied by long serving ground crew in the pushback tug, again many had decades of experience under their belt. It was simply the way it was! Now? Well now you don't even have an aircraft Engineer on the headset with some of our airlines, it could be an ex school teacher or pottery maker with less than a years airside experience doing the headset. And if it is a traditional pushback procedure with a tug and driver, well some of those lads again have a mere year or two ramp experience under their belt. Cost cutting, penny pinching and a total lack of understanding or appreciation of the process and safety risks by executive bean counters has seen the bottom of the barrel well and truly reached. 'Profits before safety'.

Nugget 2;
"Hood has a ‘get-out-of jail’ free card from the Senate – time to earn that trust. Start with ‘why’, suddenly we have a heap of “Light Contacts”. Mate! - there ain’t no such ducking thing: not when 150 + tons of fuel loaded machinery collide @ even 10 knots (5 each for the uninformed)"

The assessment and understanding of this incident by Hoody and/or his investigator through the comment of 'light contact' is again extremely worrying. Firstly, there is only ever 'contact'. Nothing should ever contact an aircraft in a manner it wasn't designed to do, EVER! And to label it 'light contact' is preposterous. Define 'light' Greg? What aircraft 'contact' scale do you measure against? Show us your matrix mate? Actually don't bother Greg, you speak utter bullshit. YOU have made an assumption based on no quantifiable measuring tool, and that is a dangerous precedent for any investigative authority to promote. An investigator investigates and reports using factual evidence, quantifiable analysis, not making up his own personal language or tools, FFS. Also, in the old days just having a set of mobile stairs rubber bumper touching the aircraft would see a pilot or ground engineer rip you a new one! But now, according to Hoody's boys; when you have two passenger aircraft and a wing from one collides with a tail cone of another and damages the shit out of the two aircraft causing a huge amount of damage it is just 'light contact'. UFB. Are these muppets serious?

Nugget 3;
"Get real – sort it out; or, alternatively - fuck off".

Good to see a no holes barred statement as above. Tom sums the ATsB situation up precisely. This level of incident and the subsequent investigation report is a disgrace. Greg, mate, if you can't do the job (and it certainly looks like you are following in Beakers footsteps), please expedite your exit from the building forthwith. In other words, fuck off, NOW.

The ATsB are obviously using the below methodology to determine what is a serious or non serious situation? Enjoy;

Perfect timing Ol'Tom, Gobbles & "K", look here at about 02:05...

Guess what Hoody if your 'key' responsibility is to pick up on 'safety trends' well your mob seem somewhat remiss in picking up on 'taxi rash' trends. Maybe your database desktop approach needs a few tweaks. After all if it took sixteen + years to discover an un-forecast WX related 'trend', which is still to be effectively risk mitigated. So one wonders how long will it take to risk mitigate the 'taxi rash' safety issue...


MTF...P2

Ps Hoody I reckon you need to ditch the suit in favour of the Toga...