Earlier last year I started a controversial thread in relation to ETOPS. In one of the posts I quoted a professional pilot:
“The engines are very reliable these days, so the chance of even one of them to stop functioning is low.
Four engined airplanes are more expensive to maintain and even to buy than twin engine airplanes. This is not what airlines want, they want an airplane that is very economical and reliable because it is a business and business is always about making profits.”
This seemed a reasonable explanation to me and it shows clearly in this case CASA did not consider safety as the most important consideration, but airline profitability and more people being able to participate in the safest form of transport.
However I have a question to ask. With more and more EDTO throughout the world (literally millions of hours), statistically someone must have worked out when one of these aircraft is going to end up in the drink. That is, originally there is a single engine failure, and before it can get to the alternate and land , the other engine fails. I have recently been told that statistically we are over that time and the safety experts are wondering when such a disaster will happen.
For those that say the twin engine operations are just as safe, why do the ICAO regulations still require four engine operations for flights from say, Australia to South America. Surely if the twin was just as safe, it would be approved.
I wait for some to go berserk and start abusing me again as they did on the last thread. However, don’t shoot the messenger. I am bringing this forward particularly because CASA has refused to “Stop the lie and change the
Act” to the words agreed to by the Shadow Minister, Anthony Albanese.
If I were a professional at CASA, I would want to be able to tell the truth rather than live a lie. I would imagine presumably these people have to go home and night and tell their children to be honest, but during the day they have to speak in a completely different way and follow the dishonest ‘groupthink’.
Then again, another section of the Canberra bureaucracy has told Canberrans that their electricity will be 100% from renewables from 2020. I suppose Canberra is the home of dishonesty. What a pity, it is so unnecessary.