Senate Inquiry, Hearing Program 4th Nov 2011

[Sarcs]

Having now gone through the transcript of the 21/11 hearing what I find most troubling is this accepted shift in the ATSB methodology of their core role as the independent transport accident/incident investigator. This is perhaps best demonstrated in the following quote from the transcript:

Mr Dolan: We see a broader issue, which is: what is the support that is provided to flight crews en route in terms of assessing their situation, getting access to weather and other related information, applying that to the management of their fuel and so on? This is in a context where we saw in the AIP something that very clearly said that it is the responsibility of pilots to obtain information necessary to make operational decisions and that pilots will not automatically receive routine TAF information showing deteriorating weather conditions if they are en route to a location. That was the status quo with Airservices, with New Zealand and, as we understand, with Fiji.

This quote is significant as it could be almost perfectly type scripted for CASA. However in terms of the ATSB remit it is totally inappropriate, their scope of inquiry should also be questioning the appropriateness of the applicable legislation and whether ASA, CASA, AMSA etc has procedures and oversight that covers off on the associated risks of this particular operation. In other words the operation category shouldn’t be a factor when it comes to the ATSB scope of investigation in any accidents/incidents as serious as this one.

The narrowing of the scope of investigation and the non-issuance of relevant safety recommendations would also appear to be in direct conflict with the ATSB ‘Statement of Intent’ which is written with Ministerial oversight, see here: Statement of intent

Therefore this apparent change in policy by the ATSB must have been ultimately signed off and accepted by the Minister. The following quote from the transcript is significant in regards to this:

Senator NASH: It is almost as if you have said, 'Here are the issues,' and CASA and Pel-Air have come back and told you what they have done and then you do not make a decision about whether you need to make any recommendations until that point in time—is that correct?
Mr Dolan: That is correct.
Senator NASH: Has it always been the case?
Mr Dolan: I would have to check with colleagues. It certainly has not always been the case; it has been the case for my entire tenure of 3½ years in the organisation and its predated my arrival by a year or two—Mr Walsh?
Mr Walsh: Yes, I think for that specific approach it has been about four years.

Which is coincidental with the change of government and a change of Minister.

Kharon said: This is all very unfortunate and untidy. Perhaps the Senate FOI request will 'discover' the paper trail. They seem to be a bit keen on that of late and they have asked for it, nicely and politely. They even checked with the IC Prof.

That said I would suggest that the Senators be aware that CASA legal has a history, over a number of years, of blatant manipulation and obfuscation of the FOI Act it might be better if the committee request that ‘paper trail’ under the Parliamentary Inquiry disclosure laws. Because even this case appears to have an example of obfuscation under the FOI by CASA legal, see here:
http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_asset...-ef12-5471.pdf

This version of the SAR was in response to flight nurse Karen Casey’s FOI request. However apparently, from people that know, this is still not the full, unadulterated, original version of the SAR. Which is reported to have had an additional 30 odd pages.

It is also interesting to take a look at the regulator’s disclosure log page: Civil Aviation Safety Authority - Disclosure log

Down the page you will see this PDF file:
30 April 2012
EF12/1779

http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_asset.../ef-121779.pdf

If you can bear to take the time to download you will see that this file contains scanned documents of all AOC renewals/additions and associated FOI/AWI supporting documents (AOC Checklist Form 069) dating back to 1998 for Transair Pty Ltd.

I’m not sure who made the original FOI request but besides being very revealing of the inner workings of the flight ops and airworthiness inspectorate there is one very notable omission (that I could see) guess what AOC approval/addition is missing? Sorry time’s up…if you go to page 175 (Schedule 1 Part 3) you will see where Lockhart River was first added as an approved route/port.

However when you scroll down to the AWI/FOI 069 form that supports the LHR route/port addition you will find there is nothing, zero, zilch for the flight ops section of the 069 AOC checklist!

Now we could say that these two apparent omissions are just an aberration, an anomaly, as documents do get lost. However I have been made aware that this, call it the CASA omission factor, COF..COF..err COF is a very common complaint (yeah Creamy I know ‘hearsay evidence’) by people in the industry who have made similar FOI requests.

Having submitted several FOI requests with various other federal agencies. I have noted that if an agency agrees to release the requested documents (i.e. not in dispute) those released documents are either pristine full and complete or if there is a ‘lost’ or ‘exempt’ part to the document that will be annotated by a series of blank pages with the FOI reference displayed somewhere.

So perhaps, Creamy can probably help me out here, an additional QON could be asked of the Professor: Is this COF acceptable under the provisions of the FOI Act or is it possibly a breach of the Act?