[Peetwo]

How things have changed? NOT! -  


References:

Update: Via the Oz today.

Dick Smith urges small airfare levy to fund new MH370 search



Dick Smith. Picture: Jonathan Ng
ROBYN IRONSIDE
AVIATION WRITER
@ironsider

12:00AM FEBRUARY 27, 2019
11 COMMENTS
Veteran aviator Dick Smith has used the launch of a new book on the MH370 mystery to call for airlines to introduce a small levy on fares to raise money for another search.

Launching The Hunt for MH370 by The Australian’s Ean Higgins, Mr Smith said it was almost unbelievable that the Boeing 777-200ER remained missing almost five years after it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

There were 239 people on board the Malaysia Airlines flight, including six Australians, but all that has been found of the jet is a dozen or so pieces of debris.


Mr Smith said a levy of just 10c a fare could raise as much as $350 million towards a new ocean search, given 3.5 billion people travelled by air each year.

“I just simply can’t believe that the safety regulators around the world have said nothing about the need to find MH370,” he said.

“I’m not at all convinced we know what happened and because of that, it is imperative we find the aircraft and the black boxes so if it was a design fault (with the aircraft) we can fix it and save lives in the future.”

Mr Smith said if there had not been an extended search for Air France flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, information about why the plane crashed would remain unknown.

“They spent the extra money and found the flight data recorder which revealed one of the flight crew held the side stick controller in the stall position,” Mr Smith said.

“No one would’ve guessed that but now every pilot is taught not to do that.”

Higgins said all the families he had spoken to in the course of researching and writing his book were desperate to know what happened to their loved ones and deserved answers.

“I think it’s more a matter of will than money that’s lacking in renewing the search,” he said. “Boeing recently reported $US100 billion in sales and it could, as Airbus did for Air France 447, put up some money to fund a new hunt.

“So could, and so should, China whose nationals accounted for two-thirds of the passengers on the aircraft.”

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 293 airlines worldwide, was unable to support Mr Smith’s call for an airfare levy to fund a new MH370 search.

Assistant director of corporate communications Albert Tjoeng said there was already a well established process for accident investigation, included in Inter­national Civil Aviation Organ­isation’s annex 13.

“There is nothing in the ICAO annexes that would establish a precedent for the kind of funding mechanism being suggested, nor would IATA support such a mechanism,” Mr Tjoeng said.

Mr Smith said that without knowing what happened to MH370 there would always be some doubt about the safety of air travel. “This situation hasn’t occurred before and we have to change that for the confidence of the airline industry,” he said.

“Every passenger who flies now must be concerned.”

And from UP thread:

The utter dishonesty of the Canberra system – MH370
Many will know that the Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has proposed a legislative change in Parliament which reinforces the unique Civil Aviation Act and the words “CASA must regard the safety of air navigation as the most important consideration.”

Of course, this means that safety is more important than anything else, including cost.

If that is true, can I ask a simple question? Why isn’t the Deputy Prime Minister pushing for the search to be reinstated for MH370?

You got it! Because the powers that be have decided that the extra cost is more important than the extra safety they may gained by finding out what actually happened!

It is clear that not only were eight Australians killed, but Australians are flying all the time on the Boeing 777, which could have an inherent fault. Only yesterday, a Qantas pilot said to me that he does not believe in the murder/suicide theory and believes there is an airworthiness problem with the aircraft – it is tied up with an oxygen cylinder that could blow up.

Of course, we see the utter hypocrisy of Canberra – not one word from Mr Carmody (the Director of Aviation Safety) and not one word from the Deputy Prime Minister or his Chief of Staff, or his head of PR.

I have called for a small levy to be put on air tickets. Ten cents would raise $270 million from the 2.7 billion passengers, so the search could continue and the aircraft to be found. After all, small fortunes were spent in finding the African Airways 747 in the Indian Ocean and the Air France Airbus A330 in the Atlantic.

Once the flight data recorders were found, safety was improved. It is unlikely that form of accident would happen again.

Yes, I know, lots of readers here believe it was a simple (if you could call it that) murder/suicide and nothing will be learnt from finding the aircraft. However, anyone who flies, and anyone who has relatives who fly, should be very wary. There is a chance that the Qantas pilot is correct and there is a problem with the aircraft.

I ask everyone to support me in a campaign to get the search going again (this time probably in the correct area would be a good idea), find the flight data recorders, and show that we are really interested in passenger safety.

No, of course! I have suddenly realised – this won’t be paid for by general aviation. Ten cents on an air ticket could mean ten cents less profit per air ticket by the airlines, so they will completely stop this from happening.

I wonder if the Minister will stand up to the powerful and truely put safety as the most important consideration ?

 

The international MH370 social media crew were slow to react to the Dick Smith comments but one long time loyal MH370 follower and super sleuth Julie Nihonmama did not miss the irony or opportunity to make a very valid Elephant in the room point - 

Julie
‏


@nihonmama

"Why isn’t the Deputy PM pushing for the search to be reinstated for #MH370?

...anyone who flies, and anyone who has relatives who fly, should be very wary. There is a chance that the Qantas pilot is correct and there is a problem with the aircraft."

https://www.pprune.org/australia-new-zea...st10401515 …

However what really caught my attention was Julie's next tweet which posthumously referenced a Ben Sandiland's Planetalking blast from the past - RIP BEN!  

☝️  "CASA clearly considers that cost is clearly more important than the safety improvement that can be made." (2019)

"The stench from the ATSB and CASA over the investigative shambles led to a damning Senate committee report" (2014) ?

https://twitter.com/PlaneTalking/status/...7478363137 …

RIP Ben. #MH370

---

AIR SAFETY


Call for ATSB chief’s removal over Pel-Air report fiasco

Senior mandarins in aviation tried to lock their Minister, Warren Truss, into a position he no longer wants to be in. A very bad career move

BEN SANDILANDS
 
DEC 03, 2014


SENATOR NICK XENOPHON CALLING FOR DOLAN'S REMOVAL FROM ATSB

The scope for major changes in Australia’s air safety investigator, the ATSB,  its aviation regulator, CASA,  and their administrator the department of Infrastructure and Regional Development looms large following the Minister’s abrupt call for a fresh look at the Pel-Air crash inquiry report.

A great deal of political and administrative capital was invested in producing and defending  the vindictive, unfair and inadequate final report that the ATSB issued, and subsequently defended, concerning the Pel-Air crash of a Westwind corporate jet doing a medical charter into the sea near Norfolk Island on 18 November, 2009.

In what might prove a critical development in the public administration of air safety in this country, that report, released after many delays on 30 August 2012, seems set to be undone, or redone.

As might prove to be the case for  Martin Dolan, the discredited ATSB chief commissioner whose testimony before a Senate hearing into the investigator’s botched processes over its Pel-Air findings was rejected by an all party committee.

Independent SA Senator, Nick Xenophon, lost no time in calling for Dolan’s removal  “and the establishment of an Inspector-General of Aviation to provide much-needed oversight of the ATSB and CASA.”

The human suffering aspect of what at first glance seems like a minor hull loss in the middle of the night is difficult to discuss for legal reasons at present. However it was anything but minor for the six people onboard when it was ditched in the sea because it had reached its intended refueling stop at Norfolk Island, on its way from Apia to Melbourne, when it discovered the weather advice it had received was wrong, it was unable to land, and it no reserves to reach an alternate.

Pel-Air, the operator was a mess. It grounded its surviving Westwinds voluntarily after the crash. Its deputy chairman and former coalition aviation minister John Sharp, even gave a media interview in which he admitted there ‘was no plan B’.  The operator didn’t even have a written oceanic fueling policy.  It was an appalling state of affairs, all seemingly brushed under the carpet by two safety authorities and a federal department.

One of those people on the flight was quite seriously injured, yet more than five years later, she is being appallingly treated, even gloated over by some parties on the basis that Australia’s air regulations in respect of such accidents were so lax/ or non-existent, that anyone using them had no legal protection whatsoever.  (Which may not prove to be the case, of course.)

That regulatory vacuum persists to this day, despite lies from CASA under previous management as to how promptly it was going to fix the situation, and an apparent paralysis of that organization under a recently departed head of safety when it came to actually reforming or performing any of its obligations to aviation stakeholders and the public.

However the testimony of Dolan to the Senate, and the tale of administrative incompetence and lack of clear management on his watch during the bungled Pel-Air inquiry that is set out by the TSBC peer review ought to have him out of the door on skates.

The identification of the secretary for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Mike Mrdak with the Dolan, ATSB and CASA positions on the Pel-Air inquiry places him in a difficult position. Mr Mrdak took his Minister, Mr Truss, to a place where the Minister no longer wants to be, which is always in hindsight, a bad, bad move.

It was Mrdak’s department that told Truss to reject earlier calls, including from the Senate committee inquiring into the ATSB, to recover the flight data recorder from the Pel-Air wreckage and redo the findings, which were essentially a lazy and incomplete scapegoating of the pilot in charge of the Westwind.

The privileged Hansard records of the testimony of Dolan, the then director of air safety for CASA, John McCormick, and Mrdak are substantially incompatible with the findings of the TSBC.

It was Mrdak’s department that wrote the original position taken by Minister Truss that there was no point in retrieving the flight data recorder or correcting the accident report.  It will be interesting to see if Mrdak can perform the necessary U-turn, and repudiate his previous words, while remaining on top in Infrastructure.

When Minister Truss’s Air Safety Regulation Review panel, chaired by David Forsyth, reported at the end of May this year it anticipated that the TSBC report would be both critical and released in the near future.

It was however, repeatedly delayed, to the point where some feared it mightn’t even see the light of day, given reported resistance to its contents within the ATSB.

The report released on Monday was written in a manner likely to put a casual reader into a coma.  But for those who read the full document, it proved highly critical of the ATSB, setting out comprehensive failings in terms of collecting and assessing information.

There was dissent within the investigating team, to the point where a ‘coach’ appointed to assist in the inquiry, sought, eventually successfully, to be relieved of his role.

The TSBC dealt deeply with the disruption caused in the investigation by uncertainty over the appropriate relationship with CASA, which conducted parallel inquiries, including an audit that was withheld from the ATSB, into the Pel-Air Westwind operation subsequent to the crash.

As reported earlier in Plane Talking and examined by a Senate committee into the ATSB’s procedures in relation to Pel-Air, CASA suppressed an audit that found that the crash could have been prevented had the regulator carried out its own duties of oversight over the Westwind operation.

The stench from the ATSB and CASA over the investigative shambles led to a damning Senate committee report, in which the committee took that rare if not unprecedented step of giving a section of their findings to their lack of confidence in the testimony and conduct of the chief commissioner of the ATSB, Martin Dolan.

Today’s decision to have ‘another look’, which to be clear, is a direction not a suggestion, reflects poorly on Truss’s Labor predecessor Anthony Albanese.

Mr Albanese broke several commitments to deal with the adverse Senate findings into the ATSB, and was ineffectual or unwilling in relation to the Pel-Air issues, which first arose on his watch with ample opportunity for ministerial direction or intervention.

Mr Truss has not escaped criticism in this portfolio either, and not just from Plane Talking.  But something has changed, this damaging and disgraceful report will be ‘fixed’ in its procedural or methodological shortcomings, there is already a new Director of Air Safety at CASA, and there may well be further changes for the better in the administration of air safety.

How things have changed? NOT! - MTF...P2