Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA

[glenb]

The Safety Risk

For perfect clarity, and said on more than one occasion and in front of witnesses, by the previous incumbent to Mr Craig Martin. a gentleman by the name of Peter White. A man of enormous integrity and ethics, and probably "too big a thinker " for CASA. He was the previously the Executive Manager for Regulatory Services and surveillance. He looked after this matter initially and worked professionally towards a resolution. He "seemed to disappear" and left CASA. Mr Martin, then took over in an "acting" role.

The words of the Executive manager Regulatory Services and Surveillance, 12 months ago said...….

"There are two types of risk. Safety Risk and Regulatory Risk. This is certainly not a safety risk, I understand that. We are talking only about regulatory risk".

For complete clarity, CASA has never put forward any safety argument, ever. This is about "other" things. They will never even dare to try and put forward a safety argument.

Let me simply use Ballarat Aero Club as an example, They will appreciate that I am actually presenting their interests.

Ballarat had effectively ceased operating, after almost reaching 100 years of operation.
They joined APTA. Very quickly they became vibrant again.
They conducted their first ever instrument rating.
They invested significantly in a sim.
They will testify, it was a vibrant GA rural aero club again, in fact no club in Australia would have achieved the percentage growth that they did.
The APTA and CASA approved model worked.

Now take all that out of it, and lets look at safety only.

In the APTA model (that CASA designed over many years with me 600 required items, issued the Part 141/142 Approval, audited etc),

The Ballarat Aero Club had access to an annual safety department budget of $250,000 ( industry leading, I suggest).

I will write to the Ballarat Aero Club, and ask what their projected safety budget is for next year. I suggest, it will be about 1/50th of that, and in fact as a Part 141 only school, they don't even need to have a safety manager or safety management system.

Surely that's a reasonable safety argument.




They have identified a "regulatory risk" but cannot clearly or concisely cant pin point it (because there isn't one).


CASA cannot, and will be completely unable to provide a supporting safety case, in fact quite the opposite, and Mr Carmody has some "very concerning statistics".

I will only say that prior to the Regional Manager, Mr Mc Heyzer forcing a new model that he refers to as "direct operational control" the pilots had a more robust safety department, a Safety Manager, a safety management system, high levels of oversight, mentoring, regular meetings, strong admin support etc.

Mr Mc Heyzers new model, effectively introduced on July 1st 2019 or thereabouts, takes those resources away. Mr Carmody now has statistics for the new CASA direct operational control model, and its effect on safety.

He has figures for July, August, September and October.

Or perhaps Mr Carmody could ask the pilots, or the aero clubs, or the committees of those aero clubs, or the maintenance people, or the admin staff, or the Key Personnel, or the management. Simply ask them to tell the truth. I don't know the answer, but the truth would sort it out.

"Which did you feel was safer, the new CASA imposed "direct operational control" as the Region Manager, calls it, or the APTA model that CASA designed, approved, audited and recommended previously?

I wonder if there are any trends. Im not sure, I don't have access to them any more. Im not talking about "blips", im talking about "smack you in the face statistics" that you cant accept, because you have "other interests".

As pilots and engineers, with a lifetime of experience in this industry, and in fact the vast majority of CASA personnel know, extremely stubborn pilots who refuse to admit they are wrong, get people killed Mr Carmody. Its a dangerous trait in this industry.


I am being somewhat cautious what I write on here, but this is also my "central dumping point", and somewhere I direct "observers" to, after an initial briefing.


Please understand my perspective. There is now a very heavy burden on me, there really is. I simply cannot walk away from this now, I really cant. As well intentioned as this is, can you imagine how much damage I will have caused.

If CASA personnel can act so inappropriately and wreak so much havoc and destruction, and have it vindicated then I will have put the final nail I the coffin for GA in Australia. I am compelled now, I really am.