Correcting Mr Carmody in post 43
Dear Mr Carmody,
Thankyou for your email response posted in Post 43 on the Pprune Thread.
In your correspondence you claim that there is no "administrative action" pending against APTA, and that response actually clearly highlights the manner in which CASA choose to engage industry, so I thankyou for providing me the opportunity to highlight it.
Attached to this thread is your response, plus the four pieces of correspondence I have received from CASA regarding my "interim operations"
CASA reference f14/9540 was the initial notification. In the last paragraph it clearly states that "within 7 days, whereupon CASA will make a final determination. As the business owner that leaves me in no doubt that my business only has 7 days surety of operations. Note that there are no safety allegations or any regulatory breaches associated with this document, although CASA elects to give me 7 days notice. That surety of operations expired 7 days later on 30/10/18.
On the expiry of that approval on 23/10/19, my business operated on a minute by minute verbal approval. Still there were no allegations of and safety concerns or regulatory breaches.
On 25/01/19 CASA provided a letter to me dated 25th January and stating "CASA could consider interim arrangements to allow the APTA business model to continue in the short term up to three months (CASA underlining).
On 12/02/19 CASA graciously release further correspondence dated 12/02/19 permitting me to continue operations until 13/05/19. Still there are no safety allegations or Regulatory breaches.
On 03/05/19 I receive correspondence permitting an extension to our operations until 01/07/19, which is the current status i.e. less than 1 month surety of operations.
As the Owner of the business, I can assure you that the consequences of your action are devastating on this business, as in fact they would be on any business. This is very substantive action to take against a business, that is not based on a grave and imminent risk to aviation safety In fact the decisions repeatedly made by CASA have nothing to do with safety or in fact any regulatory breaches.
For you Mr Carmody, to claim that CASA is not taking any administrative action may be correct but it indicates the approach that the Aviation Group headed up by Mr Graeme Crawford chooses to engage industry. Very early on in this process, I became very concerned about decisions being made by CASA and I approached the Administrative Appeals tribunal, and that will be on record. Very cunningly the action taken by CASA cannot be appealed. I wrote multiple emails on this topic, but have included the email exchange for your benefit.
On 01/04/19 I wrote to the Industry Complaints Commissioner
Hi Jonathan,
CASA has applied a “freeze” on all my regulatory tasks, some dating back to August last year. Many of these relate to courses that APTA is authorised to deliver i.e. MCC Course, Low Level. The “Freeze” is what has crippled my business, over the last 5 months. If CASA suspend, vary or cancel an AOC, I believe they are obligated to provide an Administrative Decision. I have made a number of contacts with AAT over the last 5 months, and they advise that they have no jurisdiction unless I have that document.I don’t believe that I have been issued with the appropriate paperwork, although admittedly the misunderstanding could be on my behalf.My request is that CASA issue the required document, to give me access to procedural fairness, so that I can contact the AAT. Hope that clears it up, but happy to take a phone call, you probably have it on speed dial, but just in case 0418772013."
The response I received back later in the day from CASA stated;
Hi Glen, i undertook to get back to you about whether CASA’s correspondence of 12 February varied APTA’s approval, obligating CASA to provide AAT referral rights.I’ve received legal advice to the effect that the letter doesn’t vary the term APTA’s Part 141 certificate remains valid. On that basis, CASA wasn’t obliged to provide AAT referral rights. Regards Jonathan.
So we have this incredible situation where an operator can be operating in a well intentioned, safe, and compliant manner for almost 15 years. Then without no prior indication or notice at all, CASA can place a restricted date on a business, for reasons not related to safety. When the business owner wants to pursue an appeals process, he is denied it, because CASA have set the whole thing up so that I cannot appeal it. I have only used one example in here, but there were multiple requests over the last 7 months.
I will point out that Chapter 6 of CASAs enforcement manual covers Administrative Action. and I include an excerpt here; The Civil Aviation Act 1988 (CAA) gives CASA the statutory power to address safety issues. One of the ways of addressing these issues is by the use of administrative action to suspend, vary or cancel licences, certificates, permissions, approvals, and authorisations that it has issued...….
Therefore Mr Carmody, I am of the strong opinion that CASA has taken action to vary my approval, and therefore I should be able to access procedural fairness as is required. I appreciate the stance has taken on this matter, but it is highly unethical.
If CASA claim that they have not varied my authorisation, I would call on CASA to provide an example of an Administrative Action deidentified, but taken against an Operator. That will clearly demonstrate that the action taken by CASA is akin to Administrative Action, even if CASA elect to try and "smoke it up".
Mr Carmody, this continuing approach by CASA only further highlights the lack of ethics and good governance in the Organisation. As a pilot, and instructor of many years. A lack of ethics and good governance, gets people killed. It really is that simple but significant.
Respectfully. Glen Buckley
Jonathan