[Peetwo]

Just released today was the QON index from the Budget Estimates. As expected there was a number of outstanding Senator Xenophon questions to ASA, CASA & the ATSB on the Melbourne LOSA REPCON incident. But I do get the impression from the QON that the Senators are holding fire now that the ASA are slated to appear before the Committee again.

However there was one QON on the Melbourne incident to the ATSB that I will be very interested in seeing the answer for...

102/293/ATSB/XENOPHON/Breakdown in communication
…
Senator XENOPHON: No. I am not trying to do circle work. This is important. Will the ATSB at least look at the publicly available information on WebTrak out of the two airports for that three-hour period to see whether there was a loss of separation assurance?

Mr Dolan: We thought it was more effective to ask Airservices to take a look at the tapes and to provide us with their view as to whether there had been a loss of separation assurance.

Senator WILLIAMS: How long would it take you to look at what Senator Xenophon is requesting? How long would it take you to look at that information? A couple of hours?

Mr Dolan: Possibly. It would need to be done by someone with air traffic control experience so that they could understand it, and we have a range of priorities that we have got our limited air traffic control expertise focused on. This is a matter of the management of limited resources.

Senator XENOPHON: Could you please, Chief Commissioner, take on notice whether the ATSB will be taking this matter any further, at the very least, to look at the WebTrak for that three-hour period out of the Essendon and Melbourne airports, and also whether it would look at radar tapes? Also, it appears, from what has been put to me, that there is a fundamental issue that Airservices did not give you the full story initially.

Mr Dolan: In terms of not being informed of a three-hour period, that is true.
Senator XENOPHON: Does that not worry you, Mr Dolan?

Mr Godley: Could I just clarify something, Senator? We did have one of our air traffic control investigators review the whole three hours. What happened was that after the repcon we got back to Airservices. They reviewed the tapes and said there was no loss of separation or loss of separation assurance. Our ATC investigator then reviewed the three hours. She determined that there was a potential loss of separation between two aircraft. But, due to the limitations of WebTrak, she could not be sure.

Hmm...wonder if that bit in bold at the end from Mr Godley, was part of Dolan's prepared script??  

Anyway fill your boots...P2  

Ps For those who prefer pics..