[Peetwo]

Fort Fumble & REX: "Nothing to see here - move along." 

The "he said...she said" wars seem set to continue on REX imbroglio, via the Oz yesterday:

CASA inspectors due at Rex depot amid safety concerns

ROBYN IRONSIDE
AVIATION WRITER
@ironsider

5:15PM JULY 3, 2019



CASA inspectors will visit the Rex airlines depot at Wagga Wagga tomorrow to collect more information. REX airline aeroplanes, planes, crew, refuelling and catering seen from Gate 10 of the Adelaide Airport. Regional Express is an Australian airline based in Mascot, New South Wales. It operates scheduled regional services. (AAP/Emma Brasier)

Safety concerns about aircraft maintenance at Regional Express will see inspectors sent to the airlines’ depot at Wagga Wagga tomorrow to collect more information.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said the inspectors would make observations at the maintenance depot, following on from a 17-page complaint made by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association.

“We’ve got the original allegations, and we’ve got Rex’s response to those, now we’ll go in and take a look for ourselves and then we’ll decide if we need any additional information,” Mr Gibson said.

CASA only recently completed a safety audit of Rex — the fifth in 17 months.

Mr Gibson said additional checks were not uncommon following an incident or accident. In Rex’s case, the trigger was the in-flight loss of a propeller from a Saab 340B aircraft in March, 2017.

The incident was attributed to fatigue cracks that were not detected during maintenance because the engine manufacturer did not provide specific inspection procedures for such an issue.

Rex deputy chairman John Sharp said all of the audits undertaken by CASA had found safety standards were being maintained to a high level.

“We would purport it’s among the best in the world,” Mr Sharp said, adding that the airline carried 1.3 million passengers last year on 76,000 flights.

The ALAEA complaint, received by CASA on May 27, accused Rex of pressuring employees not to report major defects on aircraft if it meant flights were disrupted.

Of several examples provided, one alleged an engineer was disciplined when he wrote a defect report about shaft corrosion on a propeller of a Saab 340 aircraft.

The letter of complaint suggested Rex came down hard on the worker, because he was not supposed to be looking at the propeller shaft while carrying out routine line maintenance.

MTF...P2