Take a look at the 2012 senate inquiry and you will see that ex casa staff are now running jet stars safety systems group. Questioning did raise concerns re possible conflict of interest at the time.
In Geoff Klouth's submission he was fairly scathing of Jet* incident investigation system and he also gave a fairly concise description of how it all worked, see here from his submission:
GeoffKlouth: Whilst I am not familiar with the Tiger Airways incident I was working in the Jetstar Safety department when the Jetstar incident occurred although I was on leave during August 2007. The incident was reported by the pilots to Jetstar Safety and it was
subsequently reported to the ATSB. The data recorded by the aircraft during the incident was stored on a Quick Access Recorder which had to be removed from the aircraft and the data sent to Qantas. Qantas processed all Jetstar QAR information as Jetstar do not have the resources to conduct this process.
Qantas informed Jetstar in August that the QAR data indicated that a Ground Proximity Warning had occurred. Jetstar Flight Operations Management then requested further information and commenced an internal investigation although at this stage the investigation focused on incorrect use of the TOGA function and the June 2007 incident was one of three incidents. The other two incidents involved a missed handled go-around in Avalon and a long landing in Adelaide.
I do not believe that there was a deliberate attempt by Jetstar to conceal information from the ATSB but that there were no protocols that required the ATSB to be informed of subsequent information.
When I returned from leave in September I was tasked with preparing a report that only focused on the June 2007 incident. The Fleet Investigator who had been preparing the report on the three incidents briefed me on what had been done and then he went on four weeks leave.
It was during this time that the incident was reported in the media and the ATSB decided to investigate the incident. It was then accorded significant priority in Jetstar. While I was trying to put together an investigation using my ATSB experience I was diverted from the task when I was advised that the Captain involved in the incident had been contacted by persons claiming to be from the ATSB and were seeking further information regarding the event. This resulted in me having to contact Qantas Security and the ATSB to try and discover who was responsible for the call. The ATSB referred the matter to the AFP but
they decided that it was not worth the resources required to pursue the matter.
My position as a Fleet Investigator was a part-time position and I was also required to fulfil my duties as a First Officer. Significantly I was still subject to the Duty Time limitations that governed how many hours in a 14 day period that a pilot could work. At the end of October I reached 100 hours duty in 14 days so I was taken off one day of flying duty.
I submitted a draft report of the June 2007 incident in November. I stopped performing the duties as a Fleet Investigator in January as I was preparing for a promotion to Captain.
The main limitation in my attempt to conduct the investigation was the lack of resources in the Safety Department. The investigation should have been conducted by an investigator who was able to devote themself full-time to the task. Part time investigators should be limited to minor investigations. As a part-time investigator I was not provided with a computer and had to provide my own and I was not even allocated a desk and had to take whatever desk was available when I was in the office. An airline safety department should be audited possibly by CASA to ensure that sufficient resources are provided based on the size of the airline. My understanding is that the Jetstar Safety Department is still the same size as it was in June 2007 and the Fleet Investigators are still rostered on a part-time basis.
So have there been any changes to the system since the inquiry, if so is it a better system?? I thought at the time of the inquiry that his submission and subsequent evidence given was very good and relevant and also very brave, so is GK still flying for Jet*?
