Senate Inquiry, Hearing Program 4th Nov 2011

[Sarcs]

AQONs 21/11

Answers to Questions on Notice for the RRAT Senate Pel-Air Inquiry hearing (21/11/12) have been posted:

2
Answers to questions taken on notice on 21 November 2012, in Canberra;(PDF 4052KB)

Link: Senate Committees – Parliament of Australia

There are some very interesting revelations and discrepancies in the answers/documentation provided, hopefully the good Senators and their staff are all over this??

One of the most outstanding pieces of spin and attempted obfuscation is contained within the answer to ATSB QON 8:

8. HANSARD, PG 21

CHAIR: Mr Dolan, could you assist the committee by giving us the date on which the decision was taken in the ATSB to downgrade the report from intolerable to broadly acceptable? You can take that on notice if you like.
Mr Dolan: I will take that on notice.

Mr Dolan: I will take that on notice.

ATSB response:
Early in the investigation, initial information indicated that there was a safety issue and the ATSB wrote to CASA about that issue. Subsequently, CASA brought additional information to the attention of the ATSB that they believed mitigated the level of risk associated with the safety issue. Additionally, during the interim period, the ATSB was gaining a better understanding of the interaction of the individuals/organizations involved. As the investigation and report underwent reviews within the ATSB the safety issue remained open. The day the Commission approved s25 release of the final report, on 16 August 2012, was when the safety issue was formally re-classified as a minor safety issue.

The last documented correspondence between the ATSB and the CASA ALIU Manager is dated 26/03/2010 on the ‘critical safety issue’. What that effectively means is that, despite the spin in the answer to QON 8, this ‘critical safety issue’ wasn’t acquitted or downgraded for nearly 29 months. I don’t know about anyone else but that ‘fact’ alone should require several heads on sticks…sheesh!

Another disturbing fact is that the extremely well researched and factual report compiled by the ATSB Pel-Air investigative team into the ‘critical safety issue’ was completely omitted from the ‘Safety Action’ section of the ‘Final Report’, where all it reads is this:

Fuel planning and en route decision-making

Minor safety issue
The available guidance on fuel planning and on seeking and applying en route weather updates was too general and increased the risk of inconsistent in-flight fuel management and decisions to divert.

So in effect all the good instructive safety information contained within “Attachment One to ATSB letter AO-2009-072 of 26 February 2010” would have been lost forever had it not been for this inquiry.

It is also interesting to note that had the ATSB issued a safety recommendation, like they did in the good old days (pre-Beaker), for this ‘critical safety issue’ that it would have been totally transparent and placed on the ATSB database for the rest of the world to peruse and learn from. It would also have meant that CASA would have been forced to respond/acquit the ‘CSI’ (do you like that?) in a timelier manner!