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From the OZ..

Civil Aviation Safety Authority under fire for failing to act on chopper reports before fatal crashes



The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is facing calls for an independent inquiry into what it knew about unlicensed helicopter pilot Troy Thomas before a Kimberley crash in which he and 12-year-old Amber Millar died.

The Australian this week ­revealed that CASA had investigated and dismissed a spate of dangerous flying allegations ­involving helicopters owned by Thomas’s companies a year ­before the crash in July 2020.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws ­reveal CASA received five written complaints, accompanied by photo and video evidence, in 2018 of “unsafe behaviour” involving aircraft badged Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures which Thomas owned at the time.

CASA also investigated a 2017 incident in which a helicopter owned by Thomas’s company Avanova crashed into the water at Talbot Bay, north of Broome.

The complaints sparked a noncompliance investigation into Helibrook, the aviation business of Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright, because Thomas’s choppers were operating under his air operator’s certificate.

Amber’s parents, Fiona and Clint Benbow, have said CASA has “blood on its hands” over their daughter’s death and called for an inquiry. West Australian senator Dean Smith backed their calls, saying patterns of non-compliant behaviour by Thomas, and “poor oversight and investigation” by CASA, were emerging.



“At a minimum there needs to be an independent inquiry that has full investigative powers ­because what we have here is a catalogue of issues around CASA,” he said.

CASA said allegations that it did not take action over instances of unsafe flying were “completely false”. “CASA has zero tolerance for serious, wilful or repeated disregard of the aviation rules and takes all reports of illegal aviation behaviour seriously,” a spokesman said. “CASA was aware of only one previous incident that Mr Thomas was involved in prior to his fatal accident.

“That incident resulted in ­enforcement action being taken.”

CASA said that it did not normally investigate the owners of aircraft involved in incidents.

“Many are owned under ­complex financial and shareholding arrangements,” the spokesman said.



At budget estimates in May, CASA chief executive and director of aviation safety Pip Spence said Thomas flying the Robinson R44 unlicensed the day it crashed was “illegal” but insisted the regulator had limited oversight of ­“private” flights, despite Thomas being a well-known tourism operator. “This is not a tourism operation. It was a private pilot,” she said. “The pilot broke those rules.

“If the pilot had survived, we would have taken enforcement action. It was a private pilot in a private operation who did the wrong thing.”



Ms Spence took five questions on notice from Senator Smith who yesterday said he had not yet received written responses and the answers are now all “well overdue”.

Senator Smith said: “Transport Minister Catherine King and her agency has to take some responsibility,” he said.

“The minister should explain why there’s no need for a full ­judicial inquiry that examines CASA’s handling of reports about incidents involving Troy Thomas’s aircraft … and also why there appears to be a disproportionate number of helicopter incidents across northern Australia.”

Ms King declined to answer specific questions but a spokesman said the government was “aware of concerns about safety in the aviation tourism industry”.