Originally Posted by
Slippery_Pete
Safety in Australian airline operations has transitioned from world leading 20 years ago, to essentially lip service.
Money hungry management and boards so busy trying to flog their “wage freeze policy” to get personal bonuses… meanwhile clapped out aircraft are flying around with 10, 20, 30, sometimes more than 40 open defects.
Australia is perilously close to a jet hull loss. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this bad. The Virgin Brisbane closed runway should have been a wake up call for EVERYONE. The cheese is aligning.
And meanwhile, CASA seem intent on wasting resources on things like stonewalling Glen Buckley for years to avoid essentially saying “we’re sorry”. They should perhaps be focusing on shutting down a jet RPT operator whose engines regularly keep going bang, often in spectacular fashion.
I hope like anything I’m wrong. I feel very uneasy about it all, and a lot of my colleagues feel the same - it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
One of the most infuriating policies of CASA (and maybe ATSB?) is that everything has to go through legal before ANY action is taken against an operator, and it quickly becomes political (unable: essential regional infrastructure, capice? Now go away. Yeeeesss Minister...). When was the last time you heard of a district office (or anyone) issuing a show cause? I know of at least one F.O.I. that resigned/retired due to the lack of action over a continuing CAO48 violation. I was told that my interpretation was absolutely correct, but when it went upstairs it was dropped. I was told that CASA was going to rip the operator a new one, this "rip" was to join the CEO of the operator for a boozy lunch. The operators have CASA by the nuts, one threat (whimper) from CASA and the operators threaten to stand up the lawyers; CASA folds. It will likely take another Seaview to clean out the trash.
And yes, all of my contemporaries (many now resigned/retired due sense of humour failure) hold the same view of the inevitability of a serious incident. I don't think I managed to train enough capable F/Os and Capts to cover the gap (nor managed to get rid of enough of the wooden ducks), and many of those headed OS to greener pastures.