Originally Posted by
cLeArIcE
I never said it was a good thing to do,nor did it ever say "I do XXX, so I don't care what happens at Ballina." The reality of the situation is despite numerous qualified professionals In the industry (all more knowledge and experienced than myself) trying to get a tower at Ballina, Airlines trying and numerous avoidable incidents (that continue to occur) no one important is listening. That leaves me to conclude one of 3 things.. 1. The system is completely corrupt and someone important with $$ and power doesn't want a tower.
2. This "safety is our number one concern" mantra is actually just bullsh*t and the cost of a few hundred death's at Ballina is an acceptable cost versus the cost Of putting in a tower.
3. The people in charge of our industry are just blind incompetent morons that would be Better suited to running a bank or being a member of parliament.
I don't know the answer, nor can I control any of the above.
What I can do is have some balls and make my own decisions to best protect my passengers and crew. It's not much, but it's something.
By saying “one” of three things, you’re setting up a false trichotomy. It’s actually a combination of all three, to a lesser or greater extent.
Beancounters in Air Services and the airlines don’t want to do anything other than put band-aides over the ugly, running sore. ATSB and CASA are either unwilling or unable to say anything critical about the ugly, running sore. It’s not ‘corruption’, in the sense that no one’s getting bags of cash to look the other way (so far as I can tell), but it’s ‘corruption’ in the sense that every government body responsible for ‘safety’ is either unwilling or unable to call it for what it is: An ugly running sore.
Safety is our highest priority has always been a vacuous motherhood statement. Part of the ‘corruption’ is that Air Services and ATSB and CASA are unwilling or unable to speak it’s name: Affordable safety. As alphacentauri says, frequently: the risk of the loss of an RPT aircraft in a mid-air at places like Ballina are not zero. But no one in Air Services or ATSB or CASA will state what those probabilities are or why it’s not ‘worth’ the cost of reducing them by doing something other than putting band-aides over the ugly, running sore.
Three is a lot less likely. Almost all of the people involved are very, very smart. Some are cunning, too. Like a rat. There’s always money to be made out of saying that safety is the highest priority but doing stuff that saves money. Fortunately for the travelling public, the diameter of the roulette wheel at places like Ballina is very large.
However, we can all make a pretty accurate prediction as to what those punters would say if they knew. We can be
certain as to what their loved ones will say if the number on the roulette wheel comes up 00. And we can be
certain as to who will be blamed by Air Services and CASA, while ATSB stares into the middle distance.