The air traffic controller allowed the Virgin plane to descend right into the smaller plane. By the way, both planes were on radar, both planes were talking to air traffic control. The air traffic controller allowed this to happen. It's basically criminal…
They never have a problem. But we've had three. And the one last week was so horrific I cannot believe it……..
Given that:
• The controllers were applying Australian Class E airspace procedures exactly as prescribed in
your NAS implementation documentation.
• The US apply significantly different procedures to mitigate against the same risks in Class E airspace.
• Nearly every professional aviation organisation in Australia warned
you that the unique Class E airspace procedures you were implementing were a potential diaster.
•
You deliberately ignored this advice.
• A series of ‘horrific’ incidents have occurred (your characterisation).
• The results were, in your words, ‘basically criminal’.
• People have been at risk of death as a result of your Class E airspace procedures.
Will you now admit that the implementation of NAS by you has been flawed to the extent that is it ‘basically criminal’, and that it is time for
professional expertise to be applied in order to avoid the near inevitable disaster that you have imposed upon Australia?
What they're saying is, we won't... we don't want small planes in commercial air space. Now, there's no such thing as commercial air space.
Name one reputable pilot organisation who has ever said this. Are you lying about this statement to cover up for your incompetence in the implementation of AusNAS? Are you making up stories because you know that the facts do not support anything you have said and that your system is inherently dangerous?
Why did you not implement NAS in the same, safe way it was implemented in the United States? I find it hard to believe that the Australian environment is so different to the US that any competent person would believe that the same safety protocols should not be applied here. What makes us so different?
I believe that Australia should have the same safety advantages as the USA – especially in aviation. Don’t you?
Could it not be that the US airspace system could operate successfully here and substantial numbers of lives could be saved by the aviation industry in the same way that Boeing 767s now operate in Australia using standard US certification without unique Australian safety short cuts and bowing to vested sectional interests?
This is so, however the incidents in Melbourne and Brisbane were in airspace similar to US radar covered Class E airspace, and the incident in Launceston was in airspace similar to US non-radar covered Class E airspace.
You are deliberately telling only half of the story. Why will you not admit that the Class E
procedures you introduced in Australia are dangerously different to those in the US, leading to these serious near-misses and the endangerment of Australian lives.
Given that you are now acutely aware of the continuing danger in your airspace, will you do the only honourable thing left and ensure that safety is restored
immediately and that a
professional organisation is able to re-start the airspace reform program in a
safe and orderly way, without the sort of amateurish and dangerous errors which led us to this low point in Australia’s aviation history.
The mid-air collision caused by your reform program could be three months, three years or even thirty years away. It could also be three minutes away. That is the nature of unmitigated risk. Any deliberate failure to mitigate against that known risk will weigh heavily upon you.
Already, GA training has suffered a downturn. How much more harm are you willing to do to the industry? Public confidence in air safety is shattered.