I’m still recovering from the giddy-spin caused by contemplating the implications of the factual errors and the illogicality of the puff piece about Class 5 in the latest
Australian Flying. (Does CASA pay for advertising in
Australian Flying?) The text within quotation marks in the article is attributed to the Principle Medical Officer of CASA:
"It doesn't do much for our safety system to be spending a lot of time on the private pilot who's flying from A to B on a Sunday afternoon."
That attitude has been informed and reinforced by the experience of RAAus; then CEO Matt Bouttell was on the Technical Working Group (TWG) that placed Class 5 recommendations in front of CASA. RAAus supported Class 5 even though it stood to benefit them none.
Say what? I think the tortured sentence asserts that Class 5 is of no benefit to RAAus.
Doesn’t the implemented Class 5
protect RAAus’s commercial interests in fact? If an equivalent of UK PMD had been implemented in Australia - as it should have been - a whole fleet of more capable aircraft would have become available to the many RAAus members who could satisfy UK PMD requirements. UK PMD has higher MTOW and higher POB limits than apply for RAAus, and self-certification. With a POB 2 limit, I reckon many potential Class 5 applicants are likely to skip the rigmarole and stay Class 2 or go RAAus.
"One of the things the group looked at was whether RAAus experienced any safety issues that could have contributed to medical conditions as a result of not having a doctor assess a pilot," Manderson said.
"If an RAAus aircraft had a safety incident like an airspace incursion or flight into terrain, it wasn't because the pilot hadn't seen a doctor; it wasn't a medical certification issue. It wasn't because they had a seizure, their blood sugar was low or they had a heart attack, so we considered a lot of that data and information."
This is
Alice In Wonderland stuff.
Who’s investigating the medical circumstances of pilots involved in RAAus incidents? Not ATSB. Not CASA. Where is this “data and information” published? If it comes from coronial inquiries – coroners are now the metaphorical ‘last man standing’ on investigation of RAAus fatalities – coroners inquire into ‘traditional GA’ fatalities as well.
But, this, in the very next paragraph:
CASA has admitted that they are operating without a lot of data on medical incidents, partly because the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) collects no data on the medical class of a pilot involved, and partly because PPLs tend not to report incidents when they disqualified themselves from flying due to a medical issue.
Manderson has called on the GA community to start reporting medical incapacitation to give them measures to evaluate the effectiveness of Class 5.
So CASA’s admits it is “operating without a lot of data on medical incidents”, but considered “a lot of data and information” about RAAus incidents was sufficient to come to the conclusion that RAAus airspace incursions or controlled flights into terrain incidents were not because "the pilot hadn't seen a doctor; it wasn't a medical certification issue. It wasn't because they had a seizure, their blood sugar was low or they had a heart attack.”
I don’t know what this is intended to mean: “PPLs tend not to report incidents when they disqualified themselves from flying due to a medical issue.” Does that mean not reporting incidents in which they are involved
after the pilot disqualified themselves from flying due to a medical issue? How can a pilot be involved in a reportable incident if they aren’t flying?
I suspect it is intended to mean that PPLs tend not to report to CASA circumstances in which pilots have disqualified themselves due to a medical issue. I’ll post the regulation on the matter below, but the ‘bottom line’ is that the holder of a class 2 medical certificate
is not obliged to "report" a medical issue to CASA unless, among other things, the issue “
continues for longer than 30 days”.
And where is the call for the RAAus ‘community’ to start reporting medical incapacitation to CASA to give CASA measures to evaluate the “effectiveness” of the RAAus arrangements? I know: absence of evidence of incapacitation due to medical issues in the RAAus community is treated by CASA as evidence of absence, but the absence of evidence of incapacitation due to medical issues in the GA community is not treated by CASA as evidence of absence. This is typical ‘cherry picking’ by AvMed.
The assertion that: “the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) collects no data on the medical class of a pilot involved” is just bullsh*t. Plain and simple. You can google this stuff. I plucked one ATSB report that has a whole section headed: “Medical and pathological information”:
The instructor held a class 1 aviation medical certificate…
The student held a Class 1 aviation medical certificate …
The examiner held a class 2 aviation medical certificate …
The controller held a Class 3 medical certificate…
The autopsy of the examiner … identified a level of ischaemic heart disease capable of causing death in isolation from other factors, but there was no evidence of an acute cardiac event having occurred at the time of the incident.
No other significant medical issues were identified in any of the remaining pilots. Further, the toxicology results did not identify any substance that could have impaired the pilots’ performance or that were not noted in their aviation medical records.
The PMO seems seriously to be suggesting that CASA has lots of data and information about of RAAus incidents, sufficient for CASA to draw conclusions about the causes of those incidents at least so far as medical issues are concerned, notwithstanding that the ATSB and CASA leave RAAus and coroners to investigate those incidents, but CASA doesn’t have sufficient data to draw the same conclusion in relation to the people who hold certificates issued by CASA over many decades and whose incidents are actually investigated by ATSB occasionally.
On "reporting" of medical issues, here’s what the law says:
67.265(4) If:
(a) the holder of a class 2 or class 3 medical certificate and a licence:
(i) knows that he or she has a medically significant condition; and
(ii) is reckless as to whether the condition has been disclosed to CASA; and
(b) the condition continues for longer than 30 days; and
(c) the condition has the result that his or her ability to do an act authorised by the licence is impaired;
he or she must tell CASA or a DAME about the condition as soon as practicable after the end of the 30 days.
The first thing to note about that regulation is the “and” at the end of each paragraph. The criteria are cumulative. That means the obligation to report under that regulation does not arise unless all of the criterial are satisfied, and one of those criteria is the continuation of the condition for more than 30 days.
Further, whilst it is true that the definition of “medically significant condition” is Orwellian – it literally includes the words “no matter how minor” - the condition must result in the certificate or licence holder being impaired in his or ability to do an act that’s authorised. Not “might” result, not “could” result and not “probably” result. The words are “has the result”.
The next reg says:
(5) If the holder of a medical certificate and a licence:
(a) knows that he or she has a medically significant condition; and
(b) is reckless as to whether the condition has been disclosed to CASA; and
(c) the condition has the result that his or her ability to do an act authorised by the licence is impaired;
he or she must not do the act until a DAME certifies that the holder can safely do such acts.
Again, an “and” at the end of each paragraph and the condition must be such that it “has the result” of impairing the holder’s ability to do an act that’s authorised. And note: It’s not an obligation to report anything to CASA. It’s an obligation not to do the specified act until a DAME says the holder is safe to do it. (No doubt DAMEs are under an obligation to ‘tell all’ to CASA. That might partly explain pilots' reticence to raise issues, lest they get back CASA. And on that subject...)
To be clear, we're not going on a witch hunt for the pilot," Manderson stressed. "We don't want their ARN; we don't want to know exactly who they are, we just want to know if they were Class 1 or 2, BC2, RAMPC or Class 5.
Unfortunately, CASA ‘has form’ in saying one thing but doing another. The circumstances in which CVD pilots now find themselves, after 2 years of CASA not doing what it said it was going to do about the OCVA, is a typical example. All on Manderson's watch.