The revised edition of the ATSB report on the Benalla GPS approach accident to the Cheyenne is now published. Very comprehensive indeed and lessons to be learned by those GA pilots who rely blindly on GPS. In discussing the serviceability of the accident aircraft the report had this to say:
"A duplicate of the current maintenance release was held by the aircraft’s approved maintenance organisation. Although the duplicate listed scheduled maintenance requirements, it did not include certifications for daily inspections and in-service defects that may have occurred subsequent to the issue of the maintenance release. Those items would only have been entered on the document that was destroyed in the accident".
Over the past forty years or more, where an aircraft has gone in and caught fire or is totally destroyed, the current maintenance release is destroyed and with it all evidence of recorded defects since the last 100 hourly inspection. The fact that a duplicate copy of the new maintenance release is kept by the certifying authority means nothing unless old defects were not fixed and carried over. Very rarely does that happen in GA aircraft.
While it is a fact that many pilots are reluctant to record defects in the maintenance release, nevertheless it is possible that certain defects may have had a bearing on the cause of some fatal accidents. This evidence is lost forever when the maintenance release is destroyed in the wreckage.
You would think that after all these years ATSB and CASA would have collaborated to ensure a copy of the current maintenance release is left at the point of each departure in order to preserve evidence in case of an accident. Isn't that why CVR's are mandated on larger aircraft - for the same flight safety reasons?