Mr Carmody’s comments are, in my view, merely an admission of the abject failure of CASA to make any positive difference.
The people with a “history of poor judgement” to which Mr Carmody referred evidently continued to operate in breach of rules the substance of which have been in place since before CASA was ever created. So how do those rules and Mr Carmody’s hand-wringing contribute to safety?
For example, the prohibition on VFR pilots operating in IMC has been around forever. What has CASA done, differently, to deal with the non-compliance with that rule, other than Mr Carmody’s ‘tut tutting’?
Although the Australian flying public and everyone in aviation are better off for the fact that little-to-nothing that CASA does has any causal connection with safety, it would be better if the millions spent had some causally positive outcome for safety.