[Peetwo]

Division in the (Aviation) House - Ring the bells!

After reading the following Oz article, by 'that other man Higgins', I wonder if we are seeing the first official battleline being drawn up that may only be sorted by a legislative revisit by NX (& his team) of CAO 48.1...   

First a bit of background can be provided by quoting my recent post off the 'CASA meets the Press' thread:

REX on the 'other' Aunty today - :

Federal air safety watchdog causing 'enormous damage' to regional aviation: Regional Express
ABC Broken Hill
By Sofie Wainwright and Cherie von Hörchner
Updated about an hour agoWed 27 Jul 2016, 6:06pm
 

P2 comment: AFAP - WTF? "..In our view, CASA isn't perfect and there are a number of problems, however we think the moves they're making to replace the outdated, one-size-fits-all fatigue rules are positive and should be supported by airlines.

The new fatigue rules are backed by extensive international scientific evidence on sleep and alertness and replace a system that is well and truly outdated,..."
But hang on a sec wasn't it the AFAP who less than a year ago were being extremely vocal in their criticism of CAO 48.1?? Oh but that's right I seem to recall they had a certain division amongst their ranks: AFAP - Strange dichotomy on CAO48.1??

..Ok from those links there was two that the subject matter was CAO48.1. The 1st was correspondence from Captain Gardiner (above) to CASA (SMS & HF, standards division) and was addressing perceived issues that the EMS/MT sector saw with appendix 3 & 4 (in particular 4B) - Submission on CAO 48.1 Appendix 4B.

...Our submission is based on feedback from members working in the emergency medical services field and the views of the Federation’s Technical Committee, made up of working airline and commercial pilots under the direction of the AFAP’s Technical Director.

As a professional association, the members and staff of the Federation are active in promoting flight safety and improving Australian and global aviation standards. The Federation’s diverse pilot membership base places it in a strong position to comment on the proposed changes to Flight Time Limitations.

Owing to the short timeline, our submission should not be regarded as comprehensive. We would welcome the opportunity to further explain and supplement our submission via discussion with all interested parties...

Hmm (tin foil hat donned ) ..okay so maybe (AFAP) Peter G, just maybe CASA SMS & HF, standards division have taken your advice/suggestion (the part in bold) - along with other industry submissions - on-board and have simply decided to delay the rollout of CAO48.1...   

The other (CAsA) PG: ...“In making these adjustments CASA has taken into account the need to give CASA and the aviation community adequate time to transition to the new rules, while ensuring appropriate safety standards are maintained,’’..

I can thoroughly understand (AFAP) PG's cynicism, because quite frankly we've all seen similar delaying/obfuscation tactics before. However it is perhaps a bit rich (in this case) to expect CAsA to react quite so quickly, when less than a week ago DAS Skidmore would have received this correspondence from the AFAP Prez, Capt Booth:

..I am writing to express our concern about the proposed Medical Transport & Emergency
Service Operations Appendix to CAO 48.1, 2013.

The Federation was not involved in the original working group to develop the proposal & it was only through our members that we were made aware of the draft. Following representation to CASA we were invited to attend the most recent working group. As we made clear at the meeting, we have no concern about operators conducting emergency retrieval services, search & rescue, rig & range safety or the myriad other low rate operations, where Crew Members are on standby for extended periods, under the proposed Appendix 4b. These crew members would be rarely if ever subject to cumulative fatigue however, we are very concerned about the crew members who are involved primarily in patient transfer services...

 
Okay just so we're clear the AFAP said this two days ago to the ABC...

"..The new fatigue rules are backed by extensive international scientific evidence on sleep and alertness and replace a system that is well and truly outdated,..."
 
Now today in the Oz Mike Higgins (the CEO of the RAAA) wrote this piece which also focussed on CAO 48.1... :

Fatigue issues are tied up in CASA red tape

• Mike Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM July 29, 2016
  

[url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/fatigue-issues-are-tied-up-in-casa-red-tape/news-story/ad71922faac92efed77149352744a36f#comments][/url]
As part of its program to identify safety issues and assess the level of risk in the aviation industry the Civil Aviation Safety Authority recently held a large aircraft (98 seats plus) sector risk profile workshop, attended by Qantas, Virgin, Tiger, Alliance Airlines and the Regional Aviation Association of Australia.

This was yet another successful workshop based on the excellent and credible approach taken with the previous three workshops, namely the mustering, aerial application and small aircraft sector risk profiles.

Importantly, the key to success was that all the hazards identified were based on objective Australian Transport Safety Bureau data.

This gave all attendees a high level of comfort and subsequent ownership of the exercise. As recently as last year the ATSB indicated it had not identified any unmitigated fatigue issues as the causal factor in any accident or serious incident in regular public transport operations.

CASA so far has failed to produce any concrete evidence that fatigue is a safety hazard that requires the type of drastic regulatory change promulgated in Civil Aviation Order 48.1.

This order mandates a highly complex rostering system that is designed to mitigate against the supposed existing unmanaged risk of pilot fatigue.

This initiative, however, ignores the lack of evidence to support the assertion by CASA that fatigue is not already being managed successfully by the present safety management systems. The RAAA repeatedly has asked that the principles of CASA directive 01/2015 be applied to the new fatigue rules to comply with the new CASA mantra of being a fair, firm and consistent regulator. But to date CASA has steadfastly refused to do this. The proposed CAO 48.1 is the most restrictive aviation work and rest rule regime in the world, stricter than regulations in the US, Europe and New Zealand, with no evidence-based safety justification for it. This CAO means Australia again will be out of step with Australian government policy (and CASA’s own published aim) of international regulatory harmonisation and reducing unnecessary regulation.

"..The RAAA repeatedly has asked that the principles of CASA directive 01/2015 be applied to the new fatigue rules to comply with the new CASA mantra of being a fair, firm and consistent regulator..."  - P2 comment: There's that mantra again - Luv it

Operators engaged in RPT or charter operations are required to have effective safety management systems that identify a range of hazards, including fatigue.

SMS were introduced and mandated by CASA in 2009 for high-capacity RPT and 2011 for low-capacity RPT. SMS are audited by CASA. But CASA has yet to produce any evidence that any identified fatigue issues have not been dealt with by the SMS regime appropriately and to the satisfaction of the operator and the regulator. Therefore, there already exists a successful system of managing fatigue. The operational restrictions and potential cost of the proposed CAO 48.1 are too great for a robust safety case and cost-benefit analysis not to have been established already by CASA.

The CASA requirement for operators to submit a fatigue risk management system by October is problematic for two reasons:

● Industry has still not seen a compelling safety case for CAO 48.1, using objective evidence in the Australian context.
● Even if an objective, data-driven safety case were to be published soon, this would not allow time for affected operators to make the decision on whether to implement an FRMS, then do the tailored work necessary to address the specific identified concerns relevant to their operational environment by the CASA deadline.

The RAAA repeatedly has requested CASA to delay implementation of CAO 48.1 until these concerns can be addressed, but to no avail.

Therefore, one can only fear that FRM is just the first casualty as we ponder what other hazards are likely to be subject to additional culling from SMS treatment and become the subject of more CASA red tape.

Mike Higgins is chief executive of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia.

Hmm...could be an interesting couple of months both in the industry and in the new Parliament -



MTF...P2