Sosij Sizzl
You appear not to have watched to the end of the AA part of the hearing on 19 November, or read to the end of that part of the Hansard. At the end of the AA part of the hearing, the Chair said to the AA witnesses, and Hansard records, this:
Quote:
CHAIR: Can I clarify that I am disgusted not by the officers but by the system that allows this to happen. We are in no way blaming you. I think you are the bunnies.
As I have previously observed, Senator Heffernan tends to be flamboyant and tiring. But the substantial difference in this matter is that he is far from alone in his open disgust at and contempt for what he is hearing.
And Senator Heffernan is no dummy (or bunny).
Creampuff,
You appear not to have watched the majority of the AA part of the hearing on the 19 November, or read the majority of that part of the Hansard. During the hearing, the Chair said to the AA witnesses, and Hansard records, this (my bolding):
Mr Harfield: The fact is that we have a Pacific safety forum that comes up where you get all these people from the various jurisdictions. We are not just dealing with Fiji by itself; we are dealing with New Zealand. We go through an agenda of all the issues that have popped up over that time and discuss them as a group rather than individually.
CHAIR: So, in the meantime, if it happens again, that is too bad? What a joke. You are a joke. Back to you, Senator Xenophon.
Senator STERLE: Colleagues, I understand the frustration and I am experiencing it too. But, with the greatest respect, yelling at the officers from the department is not called for. Chair, I think Senator Xenophon, rather than putting the question on notice, should put his questions to the officers now while we have the opportunity.
Mr Harfield: We would have to take that on notice.
CHAIR: You are a perfect bureaucrat. Senator Fawcett.
Mr Harfield: In this particular case, because this happened in a foreign jurisdiction, we would not necessarily be doing our own investigation into it.
CHAIR: The perfect mushroom!
Mr Harfield: Correct.
CHAIR: The world's perfect bureaucrat. Congratulations. Have you read the ATSB report?
CHAIR: How long have you been at Airservices?
Mr Harfield: Nearly 25 years.
CHAIR: I think you need a change of career.
CHAIR: We would be delighted to have him come here and give evidence, Ms Staib, if you would permit that—if you do not, we will subpoena him.
Ms Staib: I do not think you will need to do that.
CHAIR: I am disgusted. Thank you very much for your evidence.
Using the convenient Christian model of sinning your entire life and then recanting on your death bed might cut it for you, but I’m sorry, I just don’t swing that way.
Ferris,
I understand the point you are making and had mulled it over previously, but I feel the sovereignty of airspace above Norfolk is not relevant in this case, and with all due respect it is you who is putting up the straw man argument. To anyone not following the nuances very closely, your posts, along with some of the rubbish at the inquiry, read as though Australia did not promulgate the weather change at Norfolk which is simply not true.
Consider this scenario, and I warn you that it’s pretty damned close to what actually happened, although let’s assume to begin with that there are no airspace ‘administrations’ going on and that each FIR belongs to an independent ICAO State. Aircraft is tracking from A to D via four FIRs. Whilst flying through FIR B, the weather at destination deteriorates. The ANSP for FIR D duly passes the revised weather to FIR C, FIR B and FIR A. FIR B (& C) fail to pass the revised weather. Upon arrival at FIR D, the aircraft is asked whether he received the revised weather. He says no and is issued it, but it is too late: the aircraft passed his PNR in FIR C. The aircraft crashes and all on board perish. Now, I may have the wrong end of the stick here, but you seem to be saying this is the fault of FIR D for not ensuring that the weather was passed by another State (FIR B or C)? Twaddle. How is the ANSP of FIR D to
enforce the delivery of information to an aircraft that is in another jurisdiction? You said in post #855 that you can think of several ways, though I think in that case you were talking about ‘FIR D’ only, and an FIR D being administered on behalf of another State, in which case I tend to agree – your PNG example in post #868 is correct – but that doesn’t truly fit the circumstances of the Norfolk incident. If you think it can legitimately be done outside your own borders then please enlighten us all (that sounds sarcastic, but I genuinely would like to know).
The fault for the Norfolk incident was originally laid squarely where it lay. Unfortunately, we now live in spoon fed world where people refuse to own their errors and nebulous systemic faults, with their inherent grey areas, are the convenient fallback defence. A technologically advanced industry like aviation offer a multitude of these shadows for nefarious characters to hide in.
(NB To head off the inevitable reductio ad absurdum, I am not saying that system errors are not sometimes the legitimate issue).