From Ben Sandilands
Plane Talking blog comes this speech made by the man that stopped Minister Albanese's madness with regard to jump seat policy. The man that says Pokies are not ok, also says 200 hour pilots sitting in the right seat of high performance airplanes is not okay either.
This couldn't come at a better time. Independents are getting a say in Australian politics and have the spotlight on them
right now. What is also happening
right now is a push to dumb down our workforce more by offshoring jobs and bringing in lower and lower experience levels. All this whilst experienced pilots are in abundance.
Australia is not Europe/Asia, it has a a significant GA and Military sector that produces experienced pilots. The drive behind these new 'initiatives' is purely for the sake of $5 dollar fares. Its got to stop and as I've said before there is only so much juice you can squeeze out of the Aviation orange before something goes bang.
Nick Xenophon might be the man to close the holes in the swiss cheese. I recommend contacting him and giving him the information he will need to expose this major hull loss waiting to happen.
Perhaps its time for the tax payer and consumer to finally put his/her hand in his/her pocket and contribute towards our industry which has been the Australian Government cash cow and consumer bonanza for decades. As they say:
you don't get something for nothing nor do you for $5 for that matter.
Here is the link :
Plane Talking
Independent push for better air safety standards in Australia
September 15, 2010 – 5:35 pm, by Ben Sandilands
A 2008 photo of Senator Xenophon courtesy Wikipedia Commons
Nick Xenophon, the independent senator for South Australia, says he will move for a Senate inquiry into pilot training in Australia, and seek to remedy airline reluctance to report safety breaches to Australian authorities.
In a speech to the Australian and International Pilots Association last night he singled out the failures of Jetstar to promptly and fully report a nearly disastrous botched landing at Melbourne Airport in July 2007 , and the slashing of first officer experience levels to bare minimums at Qantaslink.
Xenophon, like the House of Representatives independents who currently support the Gillard minority Labor government, is in an unprecedented position to end the inaction of Australian governments over aviation issues.
And, although he didn’t mention it in his address to the AIPA annual dinner, he voiced sentiments shared by the coalition’s spokesperson on aviation, Warren Truss, whose election promises included making Australia a world leader in pilot training.
These are some of the things Xenophon said last night, in the order that he said them, in the course of a fuller address, and a number of them have been highlighted in bold type.
For some reason, I seem to be the only Federal pollie that I see on the Tiger flights I travel on.
But whatever the airline, whenever you board the plane, you expect the pilot to have the skills to keep us all safe.
The public rightly expects that a reduced cost ticket doesn’t mean reduced safety.
Whether it’s a legacy carrier or a low-cost carrier, passengers trust the airline has spent the money and the time to ensure their pilots have the same skills, standards and safety levels across the board.
But, based on today’s trends in aviation training and standards, can we?
The airlines say they are trying to cut costs in order to make air travel more accessible.
However, when it comes to safety, cost cutting would have to be the worst form of false economy.
The fact is the cost of maintaining the sort of training and safety standards we’ve enjoyed for so long could be as little as fifty cents a flight per passenger.
It is a pittance to pay for the level of world class safety your passengers deserve.
Overseas experience has shown us, though, that when airline safety is compromised by cost-cutting, people lose a lot more than money and time.
On February 12 last year in the United States, Continental Connections Flight 3047 took off from New Jersey for Buffalo in New York state.
It was a Bombardier Q-400 … the same plane that’s flown daily between Canberra and Sydney and around the regions.
Near its destination, the flight crashed into a residential area, killing 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants and one person on the ground.
The US National Transportation Safety Board has since blamed pilot error and poor training for the crash.
It found that the plane’s captain, Marvin Renslow:
“Had not established a good foundation of attitude instrument flying skills early in his career, and his continued weaknesses in basic aircraft control and instrument flying were not identified and adequately addressed.”
ThE NTSB also found that First Officer, Rebecca Shaw, was exhausted from regularly commuting from Seattle to the East Coast and catching what sleep she could on the couch of the commuter airline’s office.
There’s no doubt that the advent of low-cost carriers around the world has benefited tourism and trade in Australia and internationally.
In the past decade, air travel has grown by 7 percent per year and it’s expected to remain at this rate of growth in years to come.
But has anyone stopped to ask, where will all the pilots to enable this travel come from?
And, more importantly, what training will they receive?
I’m very grateful for the work of former CASA Flying Operations Inspector and former Head of Pilot Training with National Jet Systems, Dick MacKerras, who has done extensive research into the issue of aviation safety and pilot training in Australia and around the world.
Historically, pilots were required to have a minimum of 1-thousand to 15-hundred hours of flying experience before they could get into the co-pilot’s seat for a regional carrier.
But this standard is slipping, with many companies now thinking more about how they can fast-track pilots.
When passengers buy their airline ticket, do you think they realise that, in some cases, the plane might be flown by someone with as little as 200 hours of experience?
The 2007 pilots shortage saw a reduction in QantasLink’s required flight hours from 1000 hours of flight experience to just 200 for First Officers.
Three years on, and the standard hasn’t been returned to the 1000 hour minimum.
When I heard this figure I was shocked.
It amazed me that the current minimum mandated requirement for flight hours before a pilot can gain their commercial licence is just 200 hours … and I suspect most Australians would have the same reaction I did.
After all, 200 hours is not much more than what a teenage driver requires to get their P-plates in some states.
In the United States, a minimum standard of 15-hundred hours flying hours is now required before they pilots can pilot a commercial passenger flight.
This wasn’t some airline initiative, it was the initiative of Congress and President Obama, as a result of the Buffalo crash.
Most notably, the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act requires all commercial airline pilots to have completed a minimum of 15-hundred flight hours, in addition to appropriate operational experience, before they may begin piloting commercial passenger flights.
I believe we need to urgently review our current standards for flight experience in light of the US legislation.
There are a number of fantastic training programs in Australia, operated through airlines themselves, and many of which some of you may have received as part of your career.
But there are others which are inferior in quality, where training and minimum flight hours to obtain a pilots licence are not standardised.
It is then up to the discretion of the airline who they employ and, given the corporate push to reduce costs and expenses, it’s not improbable to assume some airlines will go for the cheapest employee.
The end result will be more pilots with minimal experience flying planes across Australia.
That’s why it is crucial that appropriate standards are put in place now, before any disaster occurs.
It’s also vital that standards of aircraft type and recurrent training are implemented, especially for pilots who do enter with low levels of experience.
On 21 July 2007, a Jetstar Airbus A320-232 was being flown from Christchurch to Melbourne.
Upon its approach into a foggy Melbourne, the pilot in command did not perform the go-around procedure correctly and, in the process, the crew were unaware that the aircraft was continuing to descend.
The aircraft came within 38 feet of the ground before anyone realised.
After re-climbing, the pilot then attempted to land a second time but this had to be diverted again due to the fog. The plane eventually landed safely at Avalon airport.
Upon their return to New Zealand, the crew reported the incident to the airline operator, who took five days – five days – before reporting the incident to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
It was later revealed, however, that the internal report given to the ATSB by the operator excluded key information which led to the authority determining that a formal investigation was not required.
It was only after media reports some months later that the ATSB made further inquiries into the incident and discovered the withheld information.
It seems the information given to the ATSB at first instance did not the whole story.
The ATSB subsequently found that an investigation was required and its report was highly critical.
Jetstar subsequently adopted Airbus’s standard procedures for go-arounds, and instigated a review of its third party training procedures.
At the time, Jetstar’s General Manager of Safety was John Gissing, who is now the Executive Manager of Safety at Qantas.
And the CEO of Jetstar at the time, Alan Joyce of course is now CEO of Qantas.
The 21st July incident may not have seen the light of day, had it not been for third parties coming forward with information.
You must ask the question, how many other incidents have not been reported and investigated because of flawed reporting protocols.
We have to do whatever it takes to ensure we retain our reputation as a first-class aviation industry.
Jetstar now has two Australian-registered planes based out of Singapore, with one of those planes due to be in service by the end of this year.
The airline has recently advertised for 15 A-330 Captains and 23 A-330 First Officers to crew these planes.
But the current proposal being put up would actually allow Jetstar to pool its pilot talent, enlisting pilots from across the world.
While this seems reasonable at first glance, does it mean that pilots from overseas will be required to have the same standards and experience as Australian-based pilots?
Professor Arnold Barnett, a leading expert on aviation safety at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, recently published a study on aviation safety records.
He looked at accident risk in the air and found that over the period 2000 to 2007, the average worldwide passenger death risk per scheduled flight was 1 in 3 million.
But the worldwide average reflects the actual risk level in few, if any countries.
Narrowing this down, the study found that in first world nations, which includes Australia, the accident death risk per flight was found to be 1 in 14 million departures.
Meanwhile, in advancing nations – which includes China, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand – it’s a lot lower, at 1 in 2 million departures.
In least developed nations, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, Professor Barnett says the risk of death is approximately 1 in 800,000 departures.
I believe there is an urgent need for a Senate Inquiry into aviation training and standards in Australia, and I will move for that when the Senate resumes in two weeks’ time.
I, for one, would like to see Alan Joyce and John Gissing tell a Senate Committee a little more about that July 21 incident and what happened in the days following.
The other, more immediate, change I intend to push for when I return to Canberra, is an overhaul of reporting protocols in the Transport Safety Investigation Act.
Flight crews should not be reporting to airlines, who then choose what to do with information and what information to provide to authorities.
Some airlines could have a commercial incentive to downplay incidents and that is not good enough.
That is why I will seek changes to require flight crews to report directly to aviation authorities.
The bean counters shouldn’t decide what aviation authorities find out.
In the United States, the reporting system is significantly different.
There, the culture is geared much more towards encouraging pilots to report and discuss incidents, with this information used in training and to prevent future problems.
Those who provide information to the FAA are indemnified from prosecution even if they were responsible for the incident.
In contrast, here in Australia, pilots who speak out about incidents don’t have the same sorts of protections and a fear factor may stop some from coming forward.
Quite simply, we have to change the way we do things, and go back to the sorts of practices that kept our skies safe for so long