'failing to get the extant weather in a timely manner'
But ‘failing to get the extant weather in a timely manner’ is not what ‘CASA’ says is the problem. ‘CASA’ says – that is the whole of CASA apparently – the PIC failed to properly assimilate the information the PIC had, and had the PIC properly assimilated that information, good airmanship would have resulted in a diversion.
The trouble is that CASA’s opinion is based on hearsay and an assumption that may be invalid.
The hearsay is the transcript of radio communications, and the assumption is that the PIC heard, verbatim, what’s in the transcript. Even if CASA’s opinion is based on listening to the ground recording of the actual radio communications, its opinion is still based on the assumption that the PIC heard, verbatim, what’s in the ground recording.
From the ATSB report:
The flight crew reported that, at the time, they were either not aware of or did not recognise the significance of the changed weather that was reported in this SPECI. They advised that if either had realised that significance, they would have initiated planning in case of the need for an en route diversion.
[my bolding]
There’s a profound difference between “not being aware of” something and “not recognising” something.
CASA has decided that:
1. the crew heard all of the SPECI transmission as stated in the transcript, and
2. the crew either:
a. did not understand what the SPECI meant; or
b. understood what the SPECI meant,
and therefore the decision not to divert was the result of bad airmanship.
Very big call to make on the basis of hearsay and an assumption that may be invalid.
Does anyone know if the duration of the CVR recording would be sufficient to cover the 0801:31 transmission and after?
It seems to me to be critically important to find out not only whether all of the SPECI transmitted at 0802:32 was received by NGA, and in precisely what terms and at what signal quality, but also what precisely was received by NGA a minute earlier. It seems to me that any reasonable assessment of what the crew should have assimilated and decided can only be conducted on the basis of what the crew actually heard during the SPECI transmission, in the context of what the crew actually heard a mere minute or so earlier.