Not another Norfolk Island Thread!
Hmmmmmm.....
Air ambulance crash pilot suspended despite heroic landing Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
From: The Australian February 24, 2010 12:
THE air safety watchdog has suspended the licence of the pilot hailed as a hero after last year's ditching of an air ambulance off Norfolk Island.
The Australian has learned that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority suspended Dominic James's licence as a result of its probe into the Westwind jet crash in November.
All six occupants of the Pel-Air Westwind jet survived after he and his co-pilot successfully ditched the plane in darkness off the coast of Norfolk Island.
Bad weather had prevented it from landing to refuel during a CareFlight mission to evacuate a sick woman and her husband from Western Samoa.
It ditched as fuel ran low after four landing attempts.
CASA launched an investigation in parallel to the normal accident probe after questions were raised about the amount of fuel the plane was carrying and why it did not have enough to reach another airport.
The watchdog said yesterday the Privacy Act prevented it from commenting on whether an individual's licence had been suspended. But it said it could suspend a licence "in the interests of safety".
The authority said the review of the Pel-Air accident was still in progress and issues included regulatory requirements.
It was also investigating Pel-Air's fuel policies and practices and training.
CASA said the regulations placed responsibility on the operator to ensure appropriate fuel policies to enable a flight to be carried out safely, and on the pilot-in-command to ensure there was enough fuel.
The air ambulance was operating under the aerial work category and Pel-Air indicated after the accident that it permitted planes to operate without enough fuel to reach an alternative place under some weather conditions.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in its preliminary report that the forecast conditions at the time the crew submitted its flight plan did not require them to carry extra fuel or nominate an alternate airport.
It also revealed Pel-Air had introduced a program to check and revalidate its Westwind pilots on policies and procedures, safety management systems, instrument flight rules and threat and error management.
Captain James said yesterday he could not comment until the ATSB had completed its investigation.