Lets hope that the Commissioner will now produce reports that he can be proud of. I think the ATSB have found to their cost that working closely with CASA makes their job harder and that they will ulitmately be the fall guy when a report is put under the microscope. I think this quote sums up the CASA view.
McCormick said the contents of the report were a matter for the ATSB. He added that “I doubt you would see a different outcome if they were (included).”
The report is not their product even though the suggestion is they had a huge input into the final product. Its also difficult not to come to the conclusion that the former CP was being protected by CASA so they made sure that the operator and the regulator were not exposed in the report for their responsibilities. I don't think that anything we have heard exonerates the crew but hopefully the ATSB will include in future reports all factors that surround an accident. I suspect that the investigators will also hope that they will be allowed to include all the relevant factors as well.