Both Qantas and CASA seem fixated on meeting world’s best practice
How about Senator Xenophon ask CASA and Qantas to both explain exactly what their interpretation is of 'world's best practise'? What is the 'intent' of 'world's best practise'?
I will tell you - It is a crock of sh#t, a play on words. The reason people bleat on about 'world's best practise' is so they don't have to pin a process or procedure down. When asked 'why do you do things this way or that way' you can simply answer 'it is world's best practise'. More spin deflecting wankery words.
Since the Sydney RB211 unit was disbanded in flight failures of the engine world wide have risen to more than three times the rate that Rolls-Royce had predicted pending the modification of each them according to a program that has been painfully slow, and much slower than CASA anticipated even in June, when its guidance was that this work would be largely completed by early in the New Year and that it was ‘monitoring’ the situation.
Monitoring the situation? How, by what method? It is obvious the statistics are showing there is a very worrying issue hear that goes above and beyong mere monitoring.
Sandlilands is correct, people are rolling the dice here....tick tock tick tock.
But it isn’t fine. CASA is failing in its duty of care to use its discretion in the interests of safety
Spot on Ben, industry has been saying that for decades. Nothing learned from Lockhart, nothing learned from Seaview, who is next?? An inquiry into CASA's effectiveness and ability is urgent.
The CASA Director of Aviation Safety said that he had written to the CEO of every Australian airline in March making it clear that its interpretation of the obligations and responsibilities of the CEO and the board of each airline was concerned not with where maintenance was done, but where it was administered, meaning by a responsible person on behalf of the company and subject to the authority and oversight of the Australian safety regulator.
Well let me tell you something. CASA do very little international surveillance, you can ask the Inspectors about that. The executives do lots of trips abroad to wank fest safety summits, seminars and junkets but very little Inspector work takes place due to budget and resource constraints. I had a QF person who is well in the know tell me last year that the safety and audit department was told to cut back on 'international audits' to save money. If this is in fact true, then we have two clear observations that outsourced international work IS NOT adequately oversighted. Tick tock tick tock.
criticism this writer made that higher Qantas standards were in some instances being replaced by lower international standards.
This is the VERY reason the FAA were within a whisker of recomending Australia have it's safety rating downgraded!!
Now, as for the senate hearing and Linda White, excellent work!
May I answer one of Senator Xenophon's questions? He asked about load control incidents. May I suggest the good Senator talk to the ATSB, they recently published a report after extensive investigations into ramp and load incidents, and there has been an astronomical rise in reported incidents, all the figures are there. The figures are damning, CASA rarely tasks the FOI's to look at load control and it has only been in the past 18 months that CASA have even employed Inspectors to specifically look at this issue. My source tells me that only one inexperienced Inspector is doing this. The reason being? You have executives in CASA who are ex pilots or not even commercial aviation people and they still beleive that the only discipline that is of priority or of any risk is flying ops and the guys sitting at the pointy end!! WRONG WRONG WRONG. This mentality is dangerous and outdated.
Linda White also mentioned the notable decline in QF as an entity since 2004. So true. Anything ring a bell? The reign of slash and burn started ramping up in 2004 under Dixon and then Joyce, up until today. These are not coincidences, the past 7 years of destruction has come to a head sadly, QF now has a frightening workforce/management relationship, a stinking reputation for service and in many areas of industry and media they have a declining reputation for safety.
The only people saying 'everything is ok, no problems, all is fine' are the QF execs, corporate interests and the odd ass kissing Pollie. This entire mess is getting worse, I for one along with countless others am sick to death of raising my concerns. Nobody is lstening.
I don't think Senator Xenophon realizes how much trust and hope many many thousands of people now have in him. QF management won't change, nor will CASA and nor will the Minsiter for bad teeth.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock.