[Peetwo]

Seconds away, Round 46.

As the next round of Estimates creeps closer and as the impending serious litigation attending the Essendon accident begins with the release of the outrageous ATSB report into the meeting of a tall building and a stricken aircraft, claiming 5 lives; Aunt Pru believes  it is time to provide the Committee with some clear, definitive guidelines.

In past Estimates sessions, we have watched the committee struggling to come to grips with what has become, in the Australian system anyway, a very tricky subject to nail down. Definitive answers are scarce, responsibility a safety net with large holes, the Act nearly as slippery as those who drafted it. This, before we even get down to the ‘nitty-gritty’ of how this travesty was allowed into being. The committee cannot hope to tackle the problems and find solutions without first being able to ‘understand’ where the root causes lay. There is no better example of this than the Estimates sessions where the committee is led down the garden path to meet ‘Safety Zones’. ATSB, CASA and the DoIT all on the same hymn sheet, distracted and manipulated the committee with all manner of confusing, ambiguous, carefully alibied, guilt free pony-pooh.

In so many ways, the ATSB report into the Essendon accident is dangerously misleading. (MTF). The report skips past, with a very quick, light foot, one of the very important items, i.e. development alongside of runways. Hells bells - they almost herald the DFO as a life saver FDS.  The ATSB went to considerable lengths to parallel a ‘similar’ (‘cept it wasn’t) accident at Hayward (California) to our home grown variety. There are some rudimentary similarities; however, I digress.

The Estimates committee struggled with the concept of ‘Safety Zones’ and were, IMO, led astray by clever distraction to Runway End Zones, rather than ‘Safety Zones’. So; before the next committee outing, perhaps the Senators could find a trusted assistant to read through a thirty page document which will be of great assistance to future inquiry. The document – HERE – provides a fine exemplar of how grown up, sensible, responsible, rational people set about keeping their citizens safe from burning aircraft in their shopping centres, schools and hospitals.

Advertorial - Dear Senators, struggle no more with ‘Safety Zones’, read the American bible on airport development management – free, from Aunty Pru. Here is a sample; but wait, there’s more; this information is provided at no charge or cost to the tax payer – in the hallowed name of ‘Safety’:-

3.2.2 Safety Zones.

To depict the relative risks of aircraft accidents, the California Airport Land Use Planning Handbook (Caltrans, 2002) provides guidance for developing safety zones and the risk contours upon which they are based. The risk contours are derived from the accident location database described in the Handbook and show the relative concentrations of accidents near the ends of runways of different lengths. The safety zones are developed using this data and are created for varying runway lengths and operational characteristics, while at the same time taking into account aeronautical factors that affect where aircraft accidents are most likely to occur.

A total of seven different safety zones are shown in Figure 3-4. The choice of safety zone criteria appropriate for a particular zone is primarily a function of risk acceptability. For example, some land uses represent intolerable risks when located near aircraft operation areas and are prohibited (e.g., schools and hospitals). Where the risks associated with a particular land use are considered significant but tolerable, restrictions may be established to reduce the risk. Acceptable land uses generally require no limitations (see Table 3-2 for a list of compatible land uses).

Toot – toot.

P2 comment - To help the RRAT committee Senators and their minions out, please note the following extract pics.

First there is the overhead of the safety zones 1 thru 7:

 
That needs to be referred to in conjunction with table 3-2 "safety compatibility criteria". With regards to the Essendon DFO refer to the following (under I believe - 'Mixed used retail cen tres.." ) :


 
Which brings in 'conditional' factors for zones 2 thru to 5. For conditional factors refer to the following:

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P2 comment - My layman's interpretation (of all of the above) would be that (in San Francisco California at least) the YMEN DFO development plan would never in a pink fit have got off the drawing board...


MTF...P2