Anyone read it? – that Mr. Whickham features a lot; I reckon Heffernan has the hots for both Chambers and Whickham. Easily made sacrifices on the CASA chess board, but will that satisfy the blood lust of the "Chair". Blood and fur everywhere I hope.
Hansard page 33 on
CHAIR: The evidence we have received is that the person who did that was not actually qualified to do it. Is that wrong?
Mr McCormick: That the CASA officer was not qualified to investigate? That would be incorrect.
Senator STERLE: That is not what we took, Chair. I think you wanted to take your questions to the chief pilot.
CHAIR: Yes, I will come to the chief pilot. Regarding the man who did the audit at Bankstown, what is his name?
Mr McCormick: There were 16—
CHAIR: But there would have been someone—
Mr McCormick: inspectors put on that audit. The lead was Mr Roger Chambers, who was the acting manager at Bankstown.
CHAIR: What is his role now, at this minute?
Mr McCormick: He is the acting manager of the Sydney office—the combined office of Mascot and Bankstown.
CHAIR: When did he conclude that audit?
Mr McCormick: It is on the actual audit itself. It says 8 January 2009; it should say 8 January 2010.
CHAIR: The commencement date and the finishing date are probably what we are after.
Mr McCormick: It completed on 8 January 2010.
CHAIR: And started?
Mr McCormick: It started on 26 November and ran on site from 26 November 2009 to 15 December 2009.
CHAIR: And when did Mr Wickham come on board CASA?
Senator NASH: Sorry to interrupt, but can you read out those dates again?
Mr McCormick: The audit dates on site were 26 November 2009 to 15 December 2009.
CHAIR: When did graciously Mr Wickham, who was mentioned as having, as chief pilot of Pel-Air, responsibility for some of the things that the CASA audit came up with, actually switch over to CASA? The man at the back of the room is intrigued by this.
Mr McCormick: 28 February 2011.
CHAIR: So how long after?
Mr McCormick: That is two years.
Senator XENOPHON: No, a year. It's a bit over a year.
Mr McCormick: Sorry, a bit over. It was January 2010. He came on board 28 February 2011 and he was quarantined from any activities with Pel-Air for 12 months since his employment
CHAIR: Don't take the bait! Shouldn't he have borne, as the chief pilot, some of the responsibilities for the shortcomings found by the CASA audit and the suitability of these types of aircraft to fly that sort of mission? Surely it has got to get cleared and you have got to get busy, but you cannot just walk away and say, 'I work for CASA now. ****, I got out of that.'
Mr McCormick: I do not know whether Mr Wickham has walked away. I am saying that what we have here is a case of the chief pilot. I agree the chief pilot is responsible. He is the chief pilot—that is why he has got the title.
Say a chief pilot said, 'Fly from A to B,' and the pilot who was going to do the trip worked out how much fuel he needed and it exceeded the amount of fuel he could fit on the aeroplane—assuming he actually worked out how much fuel he needed rather than guessed it—so he said, 'No, I can't do A to B.' In that situation, every single chief pilot in Australia—and I will say this without even canvassing them—would say, 'Well, then, you have to go via somewhere else and get fuel.'
Senator NASH: Are you saying the chief pilot does not have a responsibility to initially know that information, that the chief pilot does not have a responsibility, which is what the chair is asking, to know the capability of the aircraft in those circumstances?
Senator STERLE: Sure. That makes sense. There is a view with some on the committee that, while some of Pel-Air's operations certainly were not up to the expectations of CASA, Mr Wickham was the chief pilot at the time of the ditching and now he is off, and it looks like he has been congratulated, rewarded or promoted—not within CASA. Who takes ultimate responsibility? It seems to be a buck-passing, which is from the information we have received today.
If any of the PAIN mob are monitoring today, how about use that 'share' thingummy, wuzzit, to put up a Hansard download for the troops; save a lot of copy and paste time. Just give 'em a page number then. I know, knitting, right.