Sandilands - "In an election year it’s quite clear no-one in government or opposition really gives a damn about questionable standards in air safety investigations in this country.
Plane Talking – Ben Sandilands.
This short piece by Sandilands highlights, once again the lack of service to industry from the ATSB new system of recording and reporting and the evils of the MOU. It is not the tail strike per se causing the problem, but that industry must now rely on the Aviation Herald to report the incident and make it's own decisions based against the report there.
Aviation Herald.
How are developing trends to be isolated and rectified if there is no "authoritative" voice; tail strike 1 = something nothing. Tail strike 15 from one company = a different animal; 15 tail strikes across a fleet different again. Different responses required.
No matter where the funding for service is drawn from, in the end the travelling public pay – one way or the other. They pay for a first class analysis and reporting system, which oversights accidents, in the hope of preventing a recurrence. Even the humble tail strike.
ATSB is not there to cover the CASA arse, to save a few dollars by not examining accidents, or sign off on reports which are not only sub standard, useless and flawed but could allow a repeat incident to occur. It's hard to believe that in Australia we have a size 10, million dollar bun fight in the Senate just to get these people to do the job they are asked to do.