The ATSB investigation details a 2003 email it uncovered, in which an Essendon Airport management officer advised that CASA had agreed verbally to the airport applying a strip width of 180 metres rather than 300 metres.
“This should open up about 36,000 square metres of new land for development,” the email says.
Essendon Airport relied heavily on a letter from a CASA officer confirming that interpretation a month later, but CASA told the ATSB investigation that advice was wrong and had no legal validity.
This is another example of CASA apparently ‘disowning’ responsibility for its own officer’s inconvenient actions.
It appears that the only way in which to have confidence that anything written by any CASA officer is CASA’s position is to write to the CEO and seek confirmation that the CEO acknowledges and accepts that what the CASA officer said is CASA’s position.