Safety is our priority- Alan Joyce 25/2/11
'Heavy' plane a risk: probe
Andrew Heasley March 23, 2011
AN OVERLOADED Qantas Airbus A330 flying from Sydney to Hong Kong was a safety risk, air investigators have found.
A breakdown in the flow of paperwork controlling freight pallets led to the aircraft being overloaded, exceeding its maximum take-off weight by almost a tonne.
Pilots had configured its flight computers for take-off based on the wrong data about weight and centre of gravity, which ''had the potential to affect the safety of flight'', Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators found.
And a delay in notifying the error resulted in the A330 flying 10 more times before maintenance checks for any damage were made. The delay ''presented a risk to the ongoing airworthiness of the aircraft'', investigators said.
ATSB also found 28 freight load control incidents at Qantas in the 2½ years to August, the most recent on July 8.
The investigation found Qantas had not reviewed its Sydney freight-loading centre for quality assurance in the 22 months before the March 6, 2009, incident.
Reviews were supposed to be carried out by senior Qantas management every six months. The last review was in May 2007, investigators found.
''The investigation could not discount that, had those quality assurance reviews been carried out, this occurrence might have been avoided,'' they said.
No damage was found to the A330, and Qantas has since made changes to the way it loads and checks freight on to aircraft, reports incidents and has revamped its staff training, ATSB said.
Qantas said yesterday: ''As acknowledged in the report, [we] proactively adopted a range of measures to address the issues behind the incident.''
■Up to 9000 Qantas workers are ready to strike if the airline fails to guarantee job security.
Transport Workers' Union national secretary Tony Sheldon said employees including refuellers, caterers, cleaners, baggage and transport staff would take industrial action if Qantas sent more jobs overseas and put the public at risk.
Surely if you deal with a problem once you have been sprung it is 'reactive' and not 'proactive' which implies some forward thinking.
Wonder whether CASA are satisfied with the procedures in place or whether it is good enough for then just to sit on a file in Aviation House?