Bloggsy
Would you like to talk to the Pilot of the Tobago that was involved in the Launceston incident? He has said to everyone including the ATSB that there was never, ever any chance of a collision, that he listened and heard the airline’s pilot’s calls on both the area frequency and the tower frequency; he sighted the aircraft and was not at any time going to run into the aircraft.
He did say it appeared strange that when the airline pilot was given the option of going to right base – which would have been shorter – or left base – which would have been longer but taken the airline into the track of the Tobago, the airline pilot did not confirm with the tower where he was going, and then headed towards left base.
Now Bloggsy, what would you do in similar circumstances? Wouldn’t you make it clear where you were going, knowing that there could be other aircraft in the airspace which needed this vital information? Let’s say you’re in G and you decide to do a straight in approach – do you tell anyone, or just leave that a secret?
Don’t keep pushing the Launceston issue too much because one day the truth will come out on how the safety case was written to support a pre-conceived conclusion.
For example, the ATSB prepared two different pages of the final report, and then only published the page which removed the criticism of the Virgin pilots for not stating clearly whether they were going to left or right base. Would you like me to get you a copy of the page which was changed?
By the way, Bloggs, I was the person who consistently pushed for the FAA system in CTAFs of the seven calls rather than our two – I wanted more announcements so there is less jamming of the frequency with dialogue.
I’m glad to see that’s happening.