Doesn't have the snippets of the audit but here goes
Senate gets scathing Jetstar audit CASA didn’t see fit to send to airline
March 18, 2011 – 6:35 pm, by Ben Sandilands
Senator Nick Xenophon today tabled an internal and damning CASA human factors audit of Jetstar that the CEO of the aviation regulator, John McCormick,* said wasn’t in a suitable format to send to the airline.
The document produced at the public hearings today of the Senate Inquiry into pilot training and airline safety contradicts Jetstar claims to put safety above all else and points to a culture of intimidation and rule bending in the Qantas low cost subsidiary.
The Special Fatigue Audit: Jetstar dated 10 May 2010 was prepared by CASA’s manager human factors and found, among other things that:
The present system has been managed with a strong emphasis on achieving operational outcomes with insufficient consideration given to potential fatigue risk. This was evident in a number of loose interpretations and applications of* rostering practices … and further supported by the feedback obtained from operational personnel.
The human factors audit was discussed with the AIPA delegation, Captain Richard Woodward and its safety and technical consultant Captain Dick Mackerras before the public part of today’s testimony by CASA and the ATSB continued in camera.
Woodward said the audit found Jetstar was legally flying under its current staffing dispensations tougher back-of-clock consecutive rosters than would be lawful for train drivers. He drew attention to a finding that* in January 12 out of 21 of the flights between Darwin-Singapore-Darwin exceeded Jetstar’s own limits, primarily because the roster was based on a 40 minute turnaround at Changi airport which was very hard to achieve in reality when it took up to 12-15 minutes to taxi to the terminal before disembarkation, cleaning and the embarkation of the next passengers could even begin.
“There is a culture of fear and intimidation at Jetstar” he said. “I would like to have a Jetstar pilot sitting beside me this afternoon…We get many, many complaints about what is happening at Jetstar….but the damage to career and income from speaking out publicly prevents that.”
Woodward said the pilots association wanted to see Australian regulations dealing with cabin crew fatigue as well because of the safety function they perform, which was their primary role, rather than serving or selling refreshments. (In later testimony CASA outlined a provisional timetable for this to happen starting later in the year after ICAO produces* a framework and set of definitions of fatigue to be applied world wide.)
Dick Mackerras described part of the problem as out of date regulations which had been written on the basis of reasonable people doing reasonable things and not the intense commercial realities of modern long haul and low cost flying.
“This document (the human factors audit) goes to the heart of having the appearance of good safety management systems but if you don’t really have a good system where the rubber hits the road, then you get lots of complaints coming through from the pilots.
“This is happening in Jetstar.”
Senator Bill Heffernan asked the AIPA representatives if there were airlines around the world that through risk analysis and the availability of good insurance were taking the view that an ‘occasional hole in the ground’ is acceptable.
Woodward said the reality was that there would be some carriers prepared to ‘wear a hull loss’ as affordable in terms of complying with legal minimum standards rather than investing in higher standards.
Senator Heffernan: It has been put to us that it is better to have a Senate inquiry than sit around and watch a Royal Commission.
In his public testimony the CEO of CASA, John McCormick, explained that the human resources audit was but one third of an audit conducted by a jet airliner pilot, and a safety systems expert as well as the human resources manager (who has since been recruited to another senior position outside CASA).
McCormick said not all of the findings in the human resources audit were suitable for inclusion in the resulting document which was sent to Jetstar* because some sections were not verified or supported.
He also said that as a result of the combined audit and its recommendations being sent to Jetstar all of the those findings had been satisfactorily addressed by Jetstar.* Pressed by Xenophon and Heffernan for more details of as to how CASA was satisfied, and what exactly it was satisfied with, McCormick said he would provide the inquiry members with a copy of the document sent to Jetstar.
McCormick also said there was a new audit of Jetstar schduled for May this year, which wasn’t quite the answers that the senators appeared determined to establish, as observed on the small screen of the Senate inquiry webcast.* Greg Hood, CASA’s executive manager, operations division, said “We will go back and review the Jetstar responses.”
In a lengthy exchange about fatigue issues, McCormick said “There is only one cure for fatigue issues and that is money.”
During this afternoon’s public sessions the chariman Senator Heffernan said “We haven’t finished….with Jetstar and Qantas, and we are assembling evidence to call them back.”
And another. Great reporting ben