[Peetwo]

CASA dismisses Dick Smith’s radar concerns  
by: MATT SMITH
From: Mercury
July 12, 2015 12:00AM




Dick Smith has labelled the $6 million radar system at Hobart and Launceston airports a significant public safety risk. Picture: JONATHAN NG Source: News Corp Australia
  
AUSTRALIA’S airport safety watchdog has played down hopes that Tasmania’s major airports may get a more sophisticated radar system to monitor flights.  

Entrepreneur and pilot Dick Smith, who last week labelled Tasmania’s $6 million radar system at Hobart and Launceston airports a significant public safety risk, yesterday seized on comments made by incoming Civil Aviation Safety Authority chairman Jeff Boyd.

Mr Boyd told the Weekend Australian newspaper that the authority would be adopting a fundamental change in philosophy and strategy, with a safer flying environment the first priority.

The report suggested this change would result in a move to install new safety measures and greater control of air space at regional airports nationally.

Mr Smith said Mr Boyd’s comments had vindicated concerns he had raised in the Mercury last week.
[img=0x0]http://tcog.news.com.au/track/component/article/news/tasmania/casa-dismisses-dick-smiths-radar-concerns/story-fnj4f7k1-1227438394808?t_product=Mercury&t_template=s3/chronicle-component/relatedstories/templates/index[/img]
“It is a complete acknowledge that there is a problem here,” he said.

“In Tasmania, there is a huge cover-up going on. Every other capital city has radar surveillance to ground level and most capital cities don’t have big mountains around them.”

Denison independent MHR Andrew Wilkie said greater control of air space should be great news for Tasmania.

“Recent criticism by former CASA chairman Dick Smith of inadequate airspace control in Tasmania in particular has clearly had great merit,” Mr Wilkie said yesterday.

“Poor radar coverage and pilots left to maintain aircraft separation by radio contact alone below 7000 feet is an accident waiting to happen. That this applies to airliners in Tasmania, as well as light aircraft, is an appalling situation in this day and age.”

However, a CASA spokesman yesterday repeated previous statements that the Hobart and Launceston airports were safe and there were no plans to upgrade the airport systems.

“CASA takes the same approach to Tasmanian airspace as it does to the rest of Australia,” the spokesman said.

“Tasmanian airspace is safe and the procedures used to manage Tasmanian air traffic are safe.

“CASA will continue to monitor and review Tasmanian airspace to ensure the right level of air traffic surveillance and procedures are in place to deliver safe skies for everyone who flies.

“Any changes to Tasmanian airspace will be made after public consultation with airspace users such as pilots, air operators and other interested organisations and people.”
matthew.smith@news.com.au

More on this from the Oz today, this time from the Tassie correspondent Matthew Denholm:

Airservices Australia fails to follow own safety plan  

• by: MATTHEW DENHOLM
  
• From: The Australian
  
• July 14, 2015 12:00AM
  

Tasmania Correspondent
Hobart




A Jetstar plane takes off from Hobart airport. Source: News Corp Australia
 
Airservices Australia’s failure to provide reliable radar coverage to runway level at Hobart airport is an apparent breach of its own target. The airspace safety body has repeatedly dismissed concerns about the lack of reliable radar below 7000 feet at the Hobart and Launceston airports as unjustified.  

This is despite warnings from experts that a tragedy is inevitable unless the situation is rectified — and the revelation that Airservices itself intended to provide radar coverage to ground-level at Hobart airport in a 2010 project developed in ­response to a wave of earlier safety concerns.

Outlining the goals of a $6 million TASWAM (Tasmania Wide Area Multilateration) radar system in its 2009-10 annual report, Airservices said the project intended to provide radar surveillance “down to the surface at Hobart”.

But the system it actually ­delivered cannot be relied upon below 7000 feet — despite the presence in Hobart of mountains and hills — because its coverage at lower levels is deemed inadequate by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

CASA yesterday confirmed that it had refused to approve the system’s use below 7000 feet because the “surveillance coverage below this altitude does not meet the coverage requirements”.

Asked if this was due to Airservices’ failure to provide a sufficient number of ground stations to support full coverage, CASA communications manager Peter Gibson declined to comment and said: “This is a question for Airservices.”

Airservices did not directly answer the question when contacted by The Australian but ­insisted the system did work to ground level, despite not being accepted by CASA as sufficiently reliable in Hobart.

According to one air-traffic insider, who posted on the industry chat site pprune.org, Air­services reneged on its promise of reliable radar “down to the surface” to cut costs on the project. “(They) decided to try and save some money on the installation by using fewer ground stations than recommended by the suppliers,” he posted. “You get what you pay for.”

Airservices denied it had failed to deliver its own plans. “Below 7000 feet, aircraft are separated using ‘procedural’ standards (pilots reporting their location), however (they) remain displayed (on the radar system) and can be seen by air traffic controllers in Hobart, Launceston and our Melbourne air traffic control centre,” an Airservices spokesman said.

“The TASWAM was a successful project that delivered on its key objectives in a cost efficient and timely manner.”

But businessman and pilot Dick Smith, a former CASA chairman, told The Australian he believed Airservices had bungled the project by failing to install sufficient ground stations.

It was now trying to “cover-up” its failure, instead of installing more ground stations to satisfy CASA and deliver the long-promised radar coverage to the runway level. “It’s outrageous that $6m would be spent and Tasmanians are still getting a 1930s system — and it’s not safe,” Mr Smith said. “If they’ve got 90 per cent towards putting in a radar system, why not do the other 10 per cent? No one can say that having mountains and bad weather and not using radar is safe. It’s not safe. Luckily, we’ve got away without an accident. It (collision with hills and mountains) is the most common form of serious accident, and the cause of our last serious accident (in 2005) at Lockhart River (Queensland) that killed 15 people.”

Instead of radar to the runway, pilots inform air traffic control of their location below 7000 feet.

Mr Smith said he believed the system would inevitably lead to a disaster in Hobart similar to Lockhart River.

Airservices insists air traffic operations in Tasmania are “safe”. It says the system of pilots reporting their location to air-traffic control below 7000 feet is used at large regional airports, including Broome, Rockhampton, Alice Springs, Karratha, Coffs Harbour and Tamworth.

Mr Smith said few if any of these locations had the combination of mountainous topography and weather conditions of Tasmania. “They put this WAM radar system (in Tasmania) because we had some scares — two near-misses where planes were flying around in cloud — that were quite serious near-accidents,” he said.

  
Typical non-committal comment from Pinocchio, probably still getting over the Weekend Oz extravaganza...

Comment :

Peter
2 hours ago

I have flown into Tamworth several times this year IFR and was surprised initially to be asked my radial and distance when I was in the middle of an GNSS RNAV Approach......surely the ground based Aids (VOR) must be phased out and PBN (Satellites) based distance and radial be used ASAP......I agree with Dick Smith and Jeff Boyd.....Sir Angus Houston needs a shake up along with his sub-organisation !!

 
Comments from the ASA spin-doctor:

“Below 7000 feet, aircraft are separated using ‘procedural’ standards (pilots reporting their location), however (they) remain displayed (on the radar system) and can be seen by air traffic controllers in Hobart, Launceston and our Melbourne air traffic control centre”

 So just because they can see you on their screens it's all good..FFS where do they get these people..

“The TASWAM was a successful project that delivered on its key objectives in a cost efficient and timely manner.”

ASA Executive No1. key objective: Topping up the trough...

More comments from yesterday's Oz article...

James
1 day ago

The best way to keep a fire fighter's head in the game is to activly have them involved in the game.  That will not happen if they are sitting down stairs reading a magazine or playing cards.
  
Scrap Air Services.  Let private industry produce and sell the maps and charts and the BOM already produces and develops all the weather info.   Airports can run them selves.   Get rid of the middle man.  Less bureaucracy, less unions.

I flew professionally for 15 years in the US and have run my own flight school in NSW for the last 7 years.  As of September, I am shutting that down and getting out of it entirely.   To much BS in Aust.



Graeme
1 day ago

It takes a long time to properly train an air traffic controller.. They do a lot more than provide weather and local traffic services. Remember in the old days there used to be Flight Service Operators who would do this kind of thing at smaller airports. They would provide radio services, weather reports, provide notification data and accept flight plans etc. A lot of that is now done automatically by computers. The thing a computer can't do (well not yet) is look out the window and give you a rundown on the local weather and a friendly call telling you who else is flying locally. It would only take a few days to adequately train fire services personnel  to do this kind of thing.

I'm not sure why the union is so against this as there is no way a fully trained air traffic controller is going to have their job taken by a change such as this. I know a few ATCs and it is sometimes hard to get enough staff to properly man the towers we have without staff having to do extra shifts.

Bruce

23 hours ago

I would suggest airport operators ask local pilots, when not flying, to provide Pireps over the CTAF frequencies. Not much Houston and his union can do about that. And I would encourage CASA to go ahead and amend their regulations that currently prohibit anyone from providing what could be life saving information, so when Houston gets the flick hopefully his successor will have more balls and allow the firefighters to be proactive in their life saving role.

Don't forget Benalla     -A reality check comment from arlys in response to Saturday's Weekend Oz article - Radical overhaul to deliver safer skies

arlys

3 days ago

There were three very experienced pilots on board that aircraft at Benalla. Had Air Services not been taken away, they would still be with us today. Many pilots are still bitter about that. Including me. Kerry Endicott was an excellent pilot, who never took chances, a Qantas pilot with him, as well as a Helicopter pilot. All they needed was some advice, which was not given. Aviation will never forgive that.

MTF...P2