Gissing dismissed the stick shaking events yesterday that were not low energy and put them down to the increased ref speed switch not being correctly selected. Look what happenned to the Colgan Air crew in this very situation!!
Gissing is out of touch. Too much time sipping Cognac and not out in the field will deaden a person's perception of reality. He is another part of the Mascot furniture which requires replacement. He is more concerned with bonus payments and an executive salary, but he knows how to play the game well, perhaps he should take the stand in front of Nick ? Colgan was not a straight forward textbook accident if there is such a thing. Involved were the issues of fatigue, training, weather/location/pilot familiarality of the region, long travel sectors flown just to pick up the aircraft, procedural violations, crap management, low cost airline practises and the list goes on. If Gissing thinks the shaker incidents were merely caused by one casual factor then he well and truly needs to move on and let somebody else run the safety department.
I find it amazing that this 'safety leader' is still holding the position he has after all the occurences taking place over the past two years, not to metion the airlines decline ( I mean complete loss) of its excellent safety reputation ? This in itself shows how rotten the fish is...
And as an additional point I know of a number of JQ pilots concerned about flying into BNE late at night due the unrestricted aircraft operations permitted which often means ramp duty managers are working common shifts of between 12 -14 hours under extreme pressure and impossible work loads and late night mistakes are extremely common. I have also heard in the past few years that several managers have resigned, had breakdowns or near heart attcks due to the fatigue and pressure of working sometimes 70 hour weeks. Not pretty friends...