It’s beyond sad when the ATSB so shamelessly manipulates statistically insignificant data and coincidental clusters to support CASA’s knee jerk response to accidents during private ‘community service’ flights.
Imagine living with the worry that something at your workplace could be causing cancer. That's the reality for workplaces caught in a cancer cluster scare. The latest alarm has been raised at the ABC's Melbourne studios, three years after a cluster of 17 breast cancer cases at the ABC Brisbane headquarters forced the site's closure.
Cancer experts say that in 99.9 per cent of clusters investigated, there is no underlying cause found, meaning that most clusters are mere coincidence. But that's little solace to staff members comforting stricken colleagues and wondering if something in their work environment might be threatening their lives.
[My bolding.]
If CASA and ATSB were left to deal with this kind of stuff, mere coincidence and scaremongering statistics would be the basis of most regulatory activity. Oh wait...
So I’ll have a go at summarising the safety messages from the YTM tragedy:
1. Don’t fly in IMC if you don’t have a current IFR rating.
2. Resist external pressures to fly when you shouldn’t.
3. As a consequence of 1 and 2, always have a Plan B and a Plan C.
If only these lessons had been learnt before and some organisation were funded and responsible for aviation safety promotion - constantly and effectively repeating these messages and getting them across. Oh wait...