clapton
Thank you for your post and I have to admit to being guilty of simplification in my earlier posts.
I am well aware that you cannot just lift another country's laws without consideration to the supporting framework but with that said I still believe the FAA approach would be more beneficial.
Yes the Civil Aviation Act does not allow that approach but that should not stand in the way of wholesale legislative rewrite. Massive change is needed because the present legal framework is not working. Most governments hate changing an Act because it has to be done through parliament whereas regualtion amendments can be done administrativey unless challenged by parliament.
My principal reason for wanting change is that liability should be extended much further to include all culprits. At present it is too easy for an organisation to wash their hands of any responsibility for a contravention of a regulation where they may be equally responsible for the breach as the person who directly breached it. I have heard of countless examples of companies who push their pilots to complete flights that should be grounded. The pilot can cop it in the neck but the ops manager who pushed the flight out the door is able to say "...I would never force a flight that should not have left. We say in our Ops Manual that all CASA legislation is to be obeyed." Bovine excreta I say.
Let me leave you with a question. Why should the owner of a company escape all liability for deaths of passengers on a flight conducted by his/her company due to the actions of a pilot with a record of dangerous flying and the owner has done nothing to prevent that pilot from conducting flights in a dangerous manner? For that matter, why should that not include the regulatory authority who had oversight of that company and failed to do anything?
