PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Lockhart River May 7, 2005....9 years ago
Old 8th May 2014, 10:14
  #12 (permalink)  
Ned Gerblansky
 
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Great replies

I too remember that terrible day, but moreso I remember about 1 year previously when I was on my first trip to CNS in about 10 years in a B717. Looking over to the GA side, I saw Aerotropics had a metro.

Having played the CASA roulette many years prior to get RPT approval for a twin turboprop, I thought that a local operator had stepped up to the mark, had written multi-crew procedures, operations manual etc. as I had and I knew that CASA would have "put them through the ringer" in order to encertain the safest option.

It was explained to me by a most respected senior FOI that:

"If you charter an aircraft, it is your decision, you shop around and get what fits your requirements and budget. When you buy an airline ticket you are a blind consumer and expect us (CASA) to offer you the same regulatory protection as exists on Ansett or Qantas."

When we operated RPT to the Cape and the Straits, we were required to notify CASA if we could not supply a Class 1 maintenance category RPT aircraft for 1 week or more, and that caused our AOC to be questioned severely. For Aerotropics to have operated a charter-category aircraft for over a year, with no multi-crew procedures and to have been allowed to do that simply buggers my mind.

As a final thought, the first conclusion from the coroner was that CASA was not implicated or negligent in any way. It never would have been allowed 10 years prior. Erosion of standards, or just criminal negligence? (Maybe even systemic bureaucratic corruption up to the highest levels?)

Sleep in peace victims - I fear there are more to come.


Ned
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