CASA frequently proves the rule that there’s no such thing as unutterable nonsense. The most recent proof is its performance before Senate Estimates on 26 February. (That performance also shows that the current DAS has been drinking - or has perhaps been force-fed - plentiful quantities of the “safety of air navigation” rhetoric Kool-Aide.) (The Hansard should be available here:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary...onal_estimates. I haven’t worked out how to post the video.)
Apparently an operator was chock full of pilots who were “competent” but not “proficient”. They were not “proficient” because they had not done proficiency checks frequently enough in accordance with that most Orwellian of aviation regulatory tools: the Operations Manual (the content of which is not “approved” by CASA but instead effectively dictated by CASA for hapless small operators).
It appears that the periodicities for recurrent training included in an Operations Manual on the basis of someone’s strong opinion become an objective truth with automatic negative safety consequences if not complied with. Go figure.
This apparently meant the pilots were not sufficiently ‘safe’ to engage complex jets in commercial operations. However, the pilots were apparently sufficiently ‘safe’ to engage the same aircraft in private operations or conduct “mercy flights”. Go figure.
This distinction was justified by CASA on the basis of the usual “knowledge and acceptance of risk” fiction.
Apparently, if a non-proficient pilot has an emergency in a complex jet that s/he can’t handle during a private operation or “mercy flight”, the people killed on the ground know of and accept that risk. Not so if it was a commercial operation. Go figure.
I’m sure all POB the private flights would know the probabilities of the PIC having an emergency that s/he couldn’t handle at the proficiency check due date
minus 30 days, and the probabilities of the PIC having an emergency that s/he couldn’t handle at the proficiency due date
plus 30 days. The number of zeros after the decimal point in the percentages of each would have been no impediment to a fully-informed and rational assessment and acceptance of the risk. Punters boarding the aircraft on a commercial flight know neither percentage but - apparently through magic or osmosis - accept exposure to the first level of risk but do not accept exposure to the second level of risk. Go figure.
The valid practical point made in the RQAC v CASA Federal Court matter - that a pilot doesn’t become a dangerous Gumby automatically after the due date for some recurrent test/training/check becomes due - was effectively dismissed by CASA. The dismissal was on the basis of the legal difference between a failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed as a condition on an ATO delegation on the one hand, and a failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed as a consequence of the obligation to comply with an Operations Manual on the other. The latter is a breach of - gasp -
the law.
I’m guessing that if the operator had unilaterally amended its Operations Manual, under CAR 215(5), so as to extend the periods between proficiency checks and turn the breach into a non-breach, the pilots wouldn’t have magically become ‘safer’ and, more importantly, CASA would have had a conniption and directed the operator under CAR 215(3) to change it back - thus demonstrating that the content of Operations Manuals is effectively dictated by CASA on the basis of someone’s strong opinion.
Apparently an aircraft ‘knows’ and a pilot’s biology ‘knows’ the difference between the pilot’s failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed as a condition on a delegation and the pilot’s failure to comply with a recurrent requirement imposed through an Operations Manual, with the latter producing a ‘less safe’ outcome. Go figure.
Struggling with the evident heavy burden of the safety of air navigation on his shoulders, the current DAS described the risk he took in granting an exemption to enable the least non-proficient pilots to lawfully engage in a commercial operation. I’m sure the DAS had, at his fingertips, the probability figures of the least non-proficient pilots having an emergency s/he couldn’t handle compared with a proficient pilot, as well as the probability at which an operation changes from ‘safe’ to ‘unsafe’.
The scariest thing - the
scariest thing - is that they all appear earnestly to believe the nonsense they utter has a rational and causal connection with positive safety outcomes, and that they accordingly make a net positive difference to aviation safety.
Meanwhile, in ATSB land...
CASA’s performance followed the ATSB’s appearance, during the opening statement of which the Chief Commissioner went through the long list of general aviation tragedies in the last 18 or so months. The question whether there might be any causal connection between the spike in general aviation fatalities and the activities of the regulator didn’t arise. Go figure.
Oddly in my view (based on watching many, many Estimates hearings), the ATSB flick-passed questions about the second go at the NGA ditching investigation report to a lawyer. Apparently the responsible technical expert wasn’t available because s/he is based in Brisbane. Even if that’s a legitimate excuse for not fronting the Committee, one wonders why the ‘fallback’ was ATSB’s lawyer.
When asked whether NGA would have had enough fuel to make it to an alternate after arrival at YSNF, even if NGA had departed Apia with full fuel, the correct answer - no - was not forthcoming. The extra ‘thinking time’ and increased probabilities of getting a ‘lucky break’ in the weather at YSNF arising from full fuel were irrelevant to the specific question asked. It’s disappointing that the correct answer to the actual question wasn’t provided. But go figure.