Loss of VH-SVQ and all nine POB: 20 years ago

[Creampuff]

On October 2 1994, VH-SVQ, an Aero Commander 690B aircraft operated by Seaview Air, crashed into the Pacific Ocean, fatally injuring the nine persons on board.

The report of the $20 million Commission of Inquiry into the Relations between the Civil Aviation Authority and Seaview Air followed 2 years and later. The Minister for Transport at the time the report was handed down noted in Parliament:Honeymooners Leeca and Anthony Atkinson were setting out on the first day of their new life together. Reg and Pam Drayton were setting out on what was for them a second honeymoon; Stephen and Carol Lake and two of their five children, Judith and Benjamin, were setting off on a family holiday. The report paints a picture of the young pilot, Paul Sheil, as also being a victim of this unsafe organisation. These are the tragic consequences of wanton operators and an incompetent and timid regulator. They are not just statistics.Commissioner Staunton's fifth recommendation was:That in respect of Civil Aviation Regulation 206 (relating to various forms of commercial operations, including regular public transport operations) urgent consideration be given to amending or replacing the Regulation to overcome the problems identified in the course of the Commission.That recommendation was made eighteen years ago. Today, all of the problems identified by the Commissioner in Regulation 206 remain. The definition of the operation specifically mentioned at recommendation five - regular public transport - is in exactly the same terms.

Words fail me.

[Kharon]

Creamy - Perhaps it's not words that fail you – just that you have said it all. The same common denominators, essentially the same long standing perpetrators, the same 'promises' made with predictably, the same results. The list is long, the only difference is more sophistication in being 'seen' to do something and a smoother delivery of spin (well, except for the Pel Air amateur hour and now CHC). It's a new generation of aircrew too; they haven't heard it all before or watched the machine swing into direct non action, so perhaps the aberration plea will work.

I may have mentioned it once, (or perhaps twice) that there exists (once again) an extensive list of serious, crucial recommendations which, if not acted upon, will condemn us to perpetually denying that we have a flawed system, that nothing will be done to change that system and we are doomed to continually watch this charade of smoke, mirrors and pantomime repeated, over and over again.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

'Nuff said..

[tipsy2]

It is the 'regulatory management club' that has and continues to fail the industry and the public.

The various ministers being politicians can't see further than the next election, the 'secretary' of whatever department is responsible for air transport exerts the most power and that's all they see ( and public service status of course). The most recent (mis)Director of Aviation Safety demonstrated the most lucid case for contraception and as that had failed, euthanasia.

Given that ministers come and go at a political whim and the various DAS appear to be in it as a retirement job for just a few years, I am left to believe the total mess I have seen the aviation game in for the last 46 years rests with the flunkies appointed as the "Secretary" of a Department of changing names.

It would seem as though they are power and string pullers behind the 'regulatory management club'.

If in doubt visit all those wonderful videos of Senate committee visits by the present incumbent.

[thorn bird]

Thats what he gets paid the big bucks for Tipsy, earns more than the PM I'm told.

For doing nothing, or rather I should say, for ensuring nothing gets done.

As Arfer used to say "what a nice little earner"!! and thats not counting all the little kickbacks...sorry "Gifts" and all the perks.

[Wizofoz]

I knew both Paul and his father Pat.

I also knew the seamy, otherworldly scene of marginal, barley profitable, "Rules were made to be broken" third tier operators like Seaview- and, if truth be told, had flown for them and in the manner they engendered.

By the time Paul died I was lucky enough to be out of that scene- but knew exactly how he had been sucked into that type of operation, with the hope of progression to "Real" aviation one day.

If, so many years later, it still exists, it is a travesty perpetuated by those supposedly charged with ensuring the safety of the traveling public.

[Fris B. Fairing]

As Arfer used to say

also: (referring to "Arfur's Gang")

It's not a gang, Terry. It's merely a loose collection of inadequate individuals.

[Boratous]

No doubt CASA complied fully with the recommendation:

"That in respect of Civil Aviation Regulation 206 (relating to various forms of commercial operations, including regular public transport operations) urgent consideration be given to amending or replacing the Regulation to overcome the problems identified in the course of the Commission."

No doubt CASA gave urgent consideration to amending or replacing CAR 206. Having given the matter due and urgent consideration CASA no doubt felt it was too hard and decided not to do anything. But at least they could hold their hands on their hearts and say that they had complied with the recommendation, which didn't actualy say to amend or replace CAR 206 - just to give it urgent consideration. Case closed.

[thorn bird]

Got it in one Boratous,

Reg 206 is far too useful for preventing aviation for CAsA to let go of it.

[PA39]

Seems like yesterday. Was working out of Coffs at the time. Talk about it's who you know, it was a bloody joke. Certain person involved continued to operate illegal charter YSCH-YLHI for many years after....if not still!

[PLovett]

PA39, while doing my instrument rating in Port Macquarie in 2000, every Friday I would watch a PA31 load up and head eastwards for YLHI. I was told that as far as the passengers knew it was an RPT flight but that if you looked at the actual paperwork it revealed that it was a cost-share private flight. A quick look at the regs at the time revealed that you had to hold a mainland alternate to fly to YLHI and a Chieftain certainly would not do that with the loads they were carrying.

It was a strange thing that every time CASA paid a visit to Port Macquarie, that particular aircraft, which incidentally was one of the higher time Chieftains in Australia, was always absent from the field despite it not being a day for which it was scheduled to fly. I was told that the operator or a person associated with the operator was the very same person previously connected with Seaview.

It would not have taken much for CASA to have unearthed the commercial arrangements behind those flights but somehow they never got around to that.

[PA39]

Plovett I know the aircraft and the operator you refer to (but not the one I refer to). I once saw that particular aircraft loaded with pax/frt and the pax's had to climb out the crew door to get out. Frt loaded covering the exits and loaded so the tail was almost on the ground. As my delegation as CP/CFI of another organisation I called the regulator...NOTHING !! This aircraft called VFR Chieftain for LHI.... with a cloud base below the landing minima. One of the reasons I left the industry.