Senate Inquiry, Hearing Program 4th Nov 2011

[Kharon]

OBR, CVR and FDR.

Suitably fortified with a large slice of Christmas pudding and a bottle of Ireland's finest I had another look at the fuel issues which have caused much throwing of toys and squabbles within the rank and file. First thought was of the Caribbean incident and the NTSB approach – the aircraft had a 4.5 hour supply of fuel on board, which was exhausted after 4.6 hours – "furry muff" sayest the guru's of NTSB; "now lets find out why". Not so with the Norfolk night swimming championships.

I must say the Davies fuel burn effort was at least logical, believable and nicely done; but as for the rest, well. But, that said I wondered why the fuel squabble generated so many pages of assumptions and rhetoric. All the questions and guess work could have been avoided had the actual OBR data from the flight and previous flights been examined to accurately determine the fuel status of the aircraft. There are now three "expert" fuel burn analysis (by assumption) on record and not a shred of hard data for any, not even an analysis of the grid winds and temperature for the day offered in support.

This of course lead to other questions like: why is there no company or pilot supplied version in defence?; and why was the On Board Recording device (OBR) not recovered?

So, to a reading session; the TSI Act 2003 (Part 6 :48-58) and the Civil Aviation Act 1988 (section 32 AO-AU). Note that CASA "intended" (bluffing) a prosecution and from the 1988 Act you can see that only the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) is of interest, strictly in a prosecution only sense, not the rest of the On Board Recording devices (OBR). The TSI includes the lot.

I still wonder why the "Black box" was not recovered, the combined unit would have provided an independent eye witness to the events. We are obliged by law to install and keep serviceable the "boxes": not recovering the thing makes it pointless to do so. The report is happy with 'edited' transcript and 'expert' opinion. I guess expecting the facts and evidence to support assumption are not required in the modern era of investigations. CASA and the ATSB have dreamed up some bull about there being 'enough' evidence without the CVR/FDR; and yet questions are stll being asked against spin, speculation and assumption.

We have three independent witnesses to the event ignored, unheard and buried under a mountain of paperwork; the CVR, the FDR and the co pilot. It would be a brave judge who made a ruling without hearing all the witnesses.