In several of the reports on the telly the other day there was an interesting comment made by a CASA spokesman (Peter Gibson?) regarding the alleged "cover-up" by CASA.
He alluded that CASA was quite willing to keep reports of such incidents quiet, with regards to media exposure, to keep the airlines honest.
A valid point. Do you think airlines would be quite as open to self reporting if every little issue was released to the media? Doubt it. We're all well aware of how things tend to be blown out of all proportion once some media outlets get wind of them.
This is not at all to say that incident reports should not be made publicly available. I, and so it would seem CASA, just don't feel that it's necessary to announce every incident to the masses.
I can fully understand the situation the crew of the QF5 were placed in. Ok, you heard the bang, nothing on the EICAS, no unusual vibration, aircraft is handling fine and performing as expected. Now, in the middle of the night, do we circle SIN, and the inevitable Cbs, dump 100T of fuel and return to land ensuring considerable delays, etc, etc, or press on? In this case, Frankfurt ho!
Good call and good work boys.
And as for
this from the Sydney Morning Herald,
Former CASA chairman Dick Smith said CASA investigators feel intimidated by Qantas.
"Employees have told me if we stood up to Qantas, we wouldn't have a career path,"
Geez Dick. If this is honestly the case I suggest those people seriously reassess their position within CASA
Is resilient in the face of pressure
(From a
job advertisement for a CASA Air Transport Inspector)
or at least have another good hard read of the
CASA Service Charter
...it will be independent, enforcing civil aviation regulations, as it deems appropriate, while bearing in mind these expected standards of behaviour.
