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CAA takes blame for air disaster
07 June 2006
By COLIN ESPINER
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is promising to change its ways after admitting responsibility for the Air Adventures crash near Christchurch that killed eight people.
"Ratbag" airlines will be grounded faster under an action plan agreed to by the Government and the CAA board yesterday – the third anniversary of the day pilot Michael Bannerman flew his Piper Chieftain into the ground in heavy fog just short of Christchurch International Airport in 2003, killing himself and seven Crop and Food managers.
The CAA yesterday expressed sympathy for the families of the crash victims and pledged to leave "no area unturned" in a top-down review of the Crown entity's systems and practices.
CAA chairman Ron Tannock and deputy board chairwoman Hazel Armstrong met Transport Minister Annette King for a grilling over a highly critical report by Christchurch Coroner Richard McElrea that held the CAA partly responsible for the accident.
"One of the things that touched me was when I read in the coroner's report that one member of one of the families said that he hoped the CAA would take note," Tannock said yesterday.
"There will be no area left unturned because that really was a touching paragraph."
He was speaking as families of the victims of the disaster gathered to commemorate the deaths at Crop and Food near Lincoln.
AdvertisementAdvertisementKing did not ask for Tannock's resignation yesterday, and neither was it offered. But she said the Government was not happy with the level of safety in general aviation – the class below major airlines such as Air New Zealand and Qantas.
"Non-compliance is simply not acceptable. It is not sufficient telling people off. Action has to be taken to make them compliant," she said.
King said the CAA had agreed to implement all 31 recommendations of the coroner, including investigating the possibility of independent safety audits of airlines, and changes to the structure of the authority and the statutory independence of its director.
Tannock said he wanted to express his sympathy to the families. The CAA had put aside $2 million to carry out changes, he said.
The CAA had not grounded Air Adventures because it had not stuck to its own "no-compliance, no-fly" rule, Tannock said.
Asked if he took responsibility for the crash, he said: "I wasn't chairman then but I think the CAA has got to face up to that."
Asked to assure the public that the safety record of minor airlines would be improved, Tannock said he could not give such an assurance. "We can't be totally accountable for human behaviour."
He dismissed a suggestion that the public should be able to find out which airlines were designated "high risk" by the CAA, saying "commercial matters" would preclude it.
Tannock agreed that he and his board would not fly together on a small carrier that they knew to be "high risk".
"Even people don't fly on large airlines together," he said. "Go back to the 1958 Manchester United crash – what would you have done in that case?"
Jane Bezar, whose brother, Howard Bezar, died in the Air Adventures crash, said the apology and the promise of action had come too late.
"It is three years too late for me. It does not mean much," she said.
"Why did they not take action when they were first told about the problems? If they had done that, my brother would still be alive.
"I think about him every day of my life. It is so hard."
Jim Rosanowski, the father of Andrew Rosanowski, who was killed in the crash, said Tannock's admission of responsibility was a start but did not excuse the CAA's behaviour in court.
"From the experience we had in court, it seemed as though the CAA were there with their many lawyers to cover their backsides," he said.
"What is really wrong is that if the families had not been there, a lot of information for the coroner would never have been revealed.
"It's so easy for Annette King to say, `Now we're going to do this, that and the other'. Why the hell didn't she have people in (court) cross-examining the CAA?"
King said she had confidence in the CAA's board but shied away from giving an opinion on the management's performance, saying it was not the Government's responsibility.
Neither she nor Tannock would criticise the performance of CAA director John Jones, but his wide-ranging powers and independence enshrined in law would be reviewed.
National transport spokesman Maurice Williamson said King had offered "nothing but platitudes" in response to the concerns from the Audit Office and the coroner.
King defended her decision not to sack the CAA board. "I'm about solutions, not symbolic heads on stakes."