[Peetwo]

Dear Ken (FSF), Please take note??   

While the tensions were high in the lead up to, & at the RAAA convention - see The Emperor's new clothes - MKII & Skidmore's 'vision splendid' Part I-III - apparently this did not discourage the 'Flight Safety Foundation' from endorsing the FAA & Oliver's bunch for their embracing a 'Just Culture' approach to regulatory & enforcement policy:

FSF endorses changes to Aust/US enforcement

Tuesday, October 27, 2015
The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) has confirmed its endorsement of the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) and Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority's (CASA’s) recent changes in enforcement and regulatory philosophy focused on performance-based and ‘Just Culture’ approaches to compliance and enforcement.

Addressing the National Convention of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia in Hunter Valley, Australia, FSF's general counsel Kenneth Quinn praised FAA and CASA.

"These national civil aviation authorities are embarking on enlightened best practices to compliance and enforcement by emphasising the importance of proportionality, discretion, and remedial action to address safety issues. The vast majority of deviations from the rules are due to human factors, honest mistakes, or diminished skills, where training and education are appropriate corrective measures, not punishment or enforcement," Quinn said.

"All countries should closely examine CASA's and FAA's new, forward-thinking compliance and enforcement philosophies and get away from outdated 'cop-on-the-beat' mentality, where inspectors are looking to write up violations, instead of helping organisations and individuals become compliant and enhance safety."

The FAA’s new Compliance Philosophy Order, issued  03 September, 2015, Order 2150.3B, Change 9, recognises that the FAA’s goal is to use the most effective means to return an entity holding a certificate or approval to full compliance and prevent recurrence. If a person is willing and able to comply with regulatory standards, FAA is now willing to use non-punitive ‘compliance actions’ to address the underlying root cause through airman training, counselling, or education, with agreed-upon corrective actions.

When FAA determines that compliance actions are deemed insufficient, the new policy emphasises the use of ‘Warning Notices’ or ‘Letters of Correction’ to set forth the facts and circumstances of non compliance and a specific agreement to institute corrective actions within a specified time frame. Legal enforcement action with findings of violation remain appropriate for willful or flagrant violations, or a refusal to co-operate in remedial actions.

In the same spirit, CASA's new ‘Regulatory Philosophy’ issued 15 September, 2015 sets out ten key principles to guide their regulatory powers. The principles include embracing a ‘Just Culture’ approach, taking actions that are appropriate and in proportion to the circumstances, exercising discretion fairly, avoiding punitive measures, with a focus on encouragement of training and education, with a view to remedying identified shortcomings and correcting deficiencies.

“These modern safety management enforcement philosophies, which need extensive training and 'buy in' from front-line inspectors to senior management can rapidly re-establish trust between the regulator and the regulated, and encourage people to come forward to admit mistakes, turning them into teaching moments that can save lives," said Quinn.

The inaugural meeting of FSF’s Legal Advisory Committee, comprising aviation lawyers from around the world, will be held at FSF’s upcoming International Air Safety Summit in Miami Beach, USA ( 02-04 November, 2015).FSF endorses Oliver's ten commandments??

Can't comment on the veracity of the FAA initiative but perhaps the FSF should have asked around before endorsing Oliver's 10 commandments and associated rhetoric on 'Just Culture'.
 For old mate Ken's reference - 'Just culture' & incident reporting probity? & PelAir - 'Lest we forget' Part III

We were discussing the potential to reflect the intent of our new MoU that describes the 2 agencies as ‘independent but complementary’. We discussed the hole CASA might have got itself into by its interventions since the ditching, and how you might have identified an optimum path that will maximise the safety outcome without either agency planting egg on the other agency’s face.
Right now, I suspect that CASA is entrenching itself into a position that would be hard to support. If we were to contemplate an exit strategy, or an ‘out’, then CASA would need to recognise that it is ‘in’ something in the first place. This is my take on how I see their position at the moment.

When the aircraft ditched, both the flight crew and the operator stopped their Westwind Aeromedical operations. CASA coached and guided the operator very well as they collaborated to develop a much safer process to avoid a repetition of this accident. This has happened, and Pel-Air are now operating again. The same thing hasn’t happened to the flight crew. While they may not have been the ‘Aces of the base’ they were following the relevant procedure provided by both CASA and the operator. This is an opportunity for CASA to follow the same approach with the flight crew as they have done with the operator.
...
As we discussed yesterday, following the ditching, everything went (metaphorically) ‘up in the air’. CASA has done a good job in realigning Pel-Air while it was still in the air so that it returning to earth with a much better take on how to manage this risk. Unfortunately, they took action on the flight crew without first contemplating their end-game. If they re‑frame their pre-emptive action with the flight crew to show that they had managed all the levels of safety management simply by putting the pilots’ permissions to fly on hold until they had found the problem and remedied it, then they would look far better than if they tried to prosecute the probably indefensible and hardly relevant.

We will be telling this story in our final report (if not earlier so why not make the most of this opportunity for both agencies to publicly work harmoniously, in a parallel direction?[1]

& from Nick Xenophon..

1.11      Without distracting from the excellent work of the committee's report, I believe it is important to draw attention to two issues that the committee, due to time restraints, was not able to examine more closely.


1.12      Firstly, I believe relationship between CASA's Bankstown Office (responsible for the oversight of Pel-Air and run at the time in an acting capacity by the author of the "Chambers Report") and Pel-Air's management in terms of probity, transparency and impartiality deserves further scrutiny.

1.13      Secondly, I believe it would have been beneficial to publicly examine whether the "demonstrably safety-related" actions taken by CASA against the pilot by CASA were appropriate, reasonable and consistent with other such enforcement. I believe these two issues deserve further consideration.

1.14      Both of these issues could have cast some light on why the ATSB's focus shifted from systemic and human factors to the behaviour of the pilot.

1.15      Beyond the ATSB report itself, the committee also considered the regulatory environment in which such flights operate. As discussed in the committee report, there are significant industry concerns about the low safety standards for aeromedical operations, which come under the category of 'aerial work'. This category includes activities such as crop dusting and aerial surveys.

1.16      One of the significant issues in relation to the ditching was whether or not the pilot should have chosen to divert to an alternate destination due to the weather at Norfolk Island. The committee report discusses Mr McCormick's response to whether CASA should provide guidance in these circumstances, and whether the drafting of a new Civil Aviation Safety Regulation would address this...

..1.23      It is my view that CASA, under Mr McCormick, has become a regulatory bully that appears to take any action available to ensure its own shortcomings are not made public. This poses great risks to aviation safety, and the safety of the travelling public. Equally, the ATSB—which should fearlessly expose any shortcomings on the part of CASA and other organisations to improve aviation safety—has become institutionally timid and appears to lack the strength to perform its role adequately. Both agencies require a complete overhaul, and I believe it is only luck that their ineptness has not resulted in further deaths so far. There is an urgent need for an Inspector-General of Aviation Safety, entirely independent of the Minister and his department, to be a watchdog for these agencies.


1.24      In the end, this report raises many questions. But if we wish to bring about change and improve aviation safety, we will clearly need to look beyond our inept regulators and ask: who will guard the guards themselves?

With all due respect Ken some of the players may have changed but it will take a lot more than written spin'n'bulldust from Oliver before the IOS will be warmly embracing the big 'R' regulator...


MTF..P2