[Peetwo]

Chairman Dan calls in CASA Iron Ring favour on non-safety TRA-  

Via EWH: 

 

Furore builds over Melbourne TRA
24 September 2021

A temporary restricted area imposed over Melbourne by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has raised the ire of many within the general aviation community.


The TRA was put in place on Wednesday at the request of Victoria Police who were combatting anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination protesters. The area covered a 3 nm radius centred on the Shrine of Remembrance from the surface to 2500 feet and was to be active for five days.

The move handed control of the Class G airspace within the zone to Victoria Police, which enabled them to stop news helicopters from live-streaming the protests. Police did give permission for helicopters to film, but demanded that footage be broadcast on a one-hour delay.

News outlets were granted relief from the TRA by the Federal Court yesterday, which has allowed live-streaming until CASA's decision to grant the request can be reviewed by the court next week. The media outlets argued that Victoria Police has no power to enforce the live-stream ban.

AOPA Australia CEO Ben Morgan said move was concerning and the justification for the TRA was not based in aviation safety.

"Our association is genuinely concerned that access to Melbourne's CBD airspace has been closed without valid justification, preventing commercial and media aviation from accessing the area," he said.

"Commercial and media aviation users accessing and operating within the Melbourne CBD are well versed and practiced at operating safely.

"Access to the Melbourne CBD airspace should not be manipulated for the purpose of avoiding public scrutiny or for political reasons."

Temporary Restricted Areas (also called "No-fly Zones") are not uncommon and have been applied in situations such as the devastating 2019-20 bushfires and the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and the Sydney Olympics. However, creating a temporary restricted area for the purpose of controlling media coverage has proven controversial and raised questions of censorship.

Victoria's AvSEF (formerly RAPAC) team was also not informed that the TRA had been imposed.

A CASA spokesperson has told Australian Flying that CASA is unable to comment whilst the matter is before the courts.

Meanwhile in another kind of court on the other side of town...

Plus from the 2nd day of the inquest, via the Herald Sun (thanks CW -  ):

‘Simple use of a checklist’ could have avoided Essendon DFO plane tragedy

Three twists of a knob was the difference between life and death for five men killed in a fiery plane crash into Essendon DFO.

A transport expert believes pilot Max Quartermain made a fatal error by manually rotating the rudder trim instrument 180 degrees to the right, turning the nose of the plane to the left, before the collision on February 21, 2017.

Images presented to a coronial inquest showed how Mr Quartermain’s plane, which was supposed to travel straight ahead as it carried four US tourists to King Island, instead veered to the left and smashed into the shopping hub within 10 seconds of takeoff.

Mr Quartermain and his golfer passengers Greg De Haven, Glenn Garland, Russell Munsch and John Washburn all died.





Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation manager Derek Hoffmeister agreed there were two possibilities behind the crash – that the rudder trim remained in the full nose left position from a previous flight and was not picked up by Mr Quartermain, or that he moved the knob mistakenly 180 degrees right.

“I think it’s more likely (Mr Quartermain) would have moved the trim to that position,” Mr Hoffmeister said.

CCTV showed Mr Quartermain walk around the Beechcraft B200 Super King aircraft for four minutes during a pre-flight inspection on the morning of the fatal crash.

But he didn’t have an appropriate flight check system in place, which could have picked up the rudder trim error.

“Simple use of a checklist could have diverted this tragedy,” Mr Hoffmeister said.



Mr Quartermain had been probed over a near-crash at Mount Hotham in 2015, where his plane came vertically within 90 metres of another, risking the lives of 18 people.

The coroner’s court heard Mr Quartermain blamed a GPS error for the 2015 near-miss, but destroyed the data card that would have proved what happened.

“It caused me concern that he destroyed the data card and I wondered the reasons for that – it seemed an odd thing to do,” said Civil Aviation Safety Authority investigator Rowland Cheshire.

The inquest continues.

The key line there is that the inquest continues while keeping in mind the continued delay of the ATSB investigation final report into the Essendon DFO approval process. Which according to these ATSB FOI released documents: https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5776657/fo...dacted.pdf ...was released to DIPs (including the Dept and CASA) nearly 3 years ago:

At the same time the Vic police and Coroner were invited to become DIPs to the investigation:

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Not sure if the Coroner agreed to become a DIP to the investigation but it would appear the police certainly did - 

This IMO asks some real questions about the integrity and so called independence of both the Vic police and State Coroner. Which by association also calls into question the CASA OAR (almost immediate) decision to implement a TRA over Melbourne city without any associated aviation safety case to justify this decision. Meanwhile in the case of Essendon Fields Airport CASA can apparently only provide an opinion on whether non-aviation development encroachment needs serious safety risk mitigation...





MTF...P2