Let’s not lose sight of the real issue - aviation safety. The current Act and rules, in my opinion, work against the achievement of good safety outcomes because the underlying assumption is wrong. That assumption is that LEGAL compliance = safety. This is false because rules and regulations, written by humans, naturally contain errors and cannot possibly cater by definition with all circumstances that can give rise to an accident. This truism however, is anamantha to lawyers.
The result is a confusing mish mash of draconian and contradictory regulation, capriciously enforced. The outcome is pilots and engineers focused on doing what is legal, not what is right and totally failing to create a safe flying environment.
By way of example, In the Three incidents I participated in as a student, all of which have worthwhile (but not new) safety lessons*, not one of them was written up, as far as I can tell, as a cautionary tale. the focus instead was on ensuring that CASA either didn’t find out or was put off the scent in order to ensure that the school wasn’t penalized for “something”. Multiply this by the thousands and you have an unsafe culture.
Whats worse is RPT. CASA have no ability to regulate the major airlines. The size and scope of the technology was beyond then by the early 1980’s in my memory. We are thus reliant for RPT safety on the common sense and good intentions of the airlines and manufacturers because the combination : Modern technology + complex and contradictory and capricious CASA rules cannot possibly produce a safe outcome.
To put that another way, there is nothing in CASA, not people, rules or enforcement that could have stopped the Lion Air or Ethiopian accidents from happening right here.
The real defences against accidents are common sense and experience, two things CASA seems at pains to destroy.
* Lessons:
- don’t use rags to block holes in aircraft engines during maintenance.
- don’t do touch and go STOL training, make each STOL landing a full stop.
- Teach students what “pilot induced oscillation” means, how it happens and what it does.