Given the revelations from the last public hearing of the Senate Inquiry into ‘Aviation Accident Investigations (Pel-Air)’ where the effectiveness, compliance and indeed the legitimacy of FF oversight/surveillance, investigation and enforcement were all being called into question perhaps the Barrier ‘Show Cause’ could be seen as a test case for the new paradigm that the DAS says is in place at FF.
Here are several statements made by the DAS in the public hearing 15/02/2013: (my bold)
Mr McCormick: …
“To get back to the Chambers report, I directed Mr Hood, who was then the executive manager of operations, to get an independent internal view of CASA, for my information—a view of how the organisation worked, the efficiency of our procedures and how we were undertaking them. The Chambers report dates from August 2010. We had to wait for the entire investigation to be finished before we did the Chambers report. That report was actually intended for me, and I did say at the time that I wanted warts and all. I certainly did not want any holding back in finding out where we were going and how we were going forward….”
…… “What it indicates is that our procedures and way we went about doing some things needed revision, and we were in the process of doing that. We are a different organisation from what we were in those days….”
…. “As far as CASA goes, particularly in auditing FRMS: we are very limited in our resources. As I say, at the time we were a different organisation; we were a legacy of my predecessor and his predecessors as far as our organisational structure goes. We are a learning organisation. We are much better at what we do…..”
…. “At the time, as I say, the Chambers report was started by me—and I requested that after we had completed our investigations and completed our report. So, we are at the point where I am now looking at a continuous improvement exercise; not an exercise involving talking to the ATSB. If you say the public have a right to know about internal CASA reviews: there are many internal CASA review documents, and not all of them are flattering to CASA, that is why we have to continually improve and that is what we have been doing in the time since 2009 when I arrived here….”
…. “The Chambers report was to try to pull all this together, in a new time with a new position, trying to move the organisation forward. We have learned from that and we are certainly a different organisation than we were then, in structure, policy, process and procedure…..”
… “If you look to the situation in CASA now—whether we had the resources and whether we did not—through 2009-10 and continuing to this day, an overhaul of CASA and the way we operate, the way we are structured, how we go about our surveillance, where we do surveillance and when we do it, and what systems we have to support it have been ongoing issues for myself and my team. We are deeply involved in reorganising CASA and have been, as I said, since I arrived. As for the resources, when we did go forward with what came out of the Chambers report—which I will say, again, is an internal report to CASA….”
… “Since that time, and continuing to this day, we surveil organisations at a much greater depth than we ever have before—but there is only so much we can do, as I think the committee is quite happy to acknowledge. We have seen organisations head in a direction where we could not ostensibly pull them out of a nose dive, to use an aviation analogy, or where they did not want to work with us or were not cognisant of their safety responsibilities. And we have taken action. We have taken action with Tiger Airways and we have taken action with Barrier Aviation, and there are a number of other aviation companies at the moment that we are involved with. It is not because we are out there kicking heads, if I could use the vernacular; we are out there saying. 'Here's what the regs say.' We have to strike this balance. We have to say, 'You've got to step up to this the same as we have.'…. ”
There is no denying that the DAS realised at the start of his tenure that he had some pretty major problems in FF’s oversight of smaller GA/LCRPT operators. And he should be commended for taking the initiative to commission a “warts and all” review of the FF SY/BK flight ops office.
Therefore the Barrier matter is a perfect example (here and now) to test the veracity of his statements (above) and whether FF is now proactively addressing the numerous deficiencies highlighted in the ‘Chambers Report’ and to a certain extent the Pel-Air FRMS Special Audit.
One would have to say that given the evidence presented so far that in the case of Barrier the DAS’s proactive stance (thus far) is an abject failure and FF are just reverting to form!!!
