CASA : Compliance Has Been More Important Than Education
As usual, journos only select out the more eyecatching aspects for public consumption..
For the industry, the most significant point in CASA CEO Byrons' presentation was that he has recognised the over-emphasis on compliance within CASA.
The next most important point was that he has identified that the accidents and incidents need to be properly analysed, and , only then, should changes to training be considered.
This is not just about whether instructors are doing their job. It's easy to point to instructor inexperience, because it's self evident. There are many other causal factors.
There is much angst over accident rates in both aviation and road transport, with raw figures being quoted in the press to support calls for tighter regulation. But, were these fatalaty data to be applied against the increased numbers of licence holders, vehicles or aircraft in service, and kms driven or hours flown - then the trends might be quite different to the superficial conclusions which tend to be drawn from raw data.
I'd urge Geoffrey Thomas to delve further into these numbers, and cease quoting percentages and 10 year fatality numbers which probably don't indicate anything of the real trends.
I think we all need to encourage CASA toward reducing compliance, but fostering education - it's going to fail if we don't. Along the way, we might just encourage CASA, and the government, to emulate the US FAA's charter of fostering and growing aviation in the country.
.happy days,