Indeed Kharon the longer this inquiry goes on and the more rocks the Senators kick over the uglier this whole sordid tale becomes.
As the 'inestimable' Bryan Aherne points out, there exists a perception of potentially serious breaches to various Acts.
I believe BA’s further contributions to this inquiry are indeed ‘inestimable’, despite FF’s further ‘attempts to play the man’ (reference Sub_10_Aherne_Supplementary1[1]), which further confirm his veracity and motives do not revolve around any personal self interest, rather the opposite. I would suggest that FF are deliberately ‘playing the man’ because they know that BA’s evidence, research, analysis and rebuttal is so well balanced and uncontroversial. Suggestion for FF give up on attacking BA your just digging yourself a bigger hole ( I know Sunny sociopaths won’t take that kind of advice..oh well!
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So back to BA’s supplementary submissions…oh so spoilt for choice…ponder..ponder??
Okay here’s one that would appear to support Mr McPhee’s submission 19 amongst other things…
:
17. In regard to hazardous weather alerting:
(a) Did the ATSB form a view about the adequacy of the procedures for the alerting of flight crew engaged in international flights to significant weather changes at their destination?
ATSB response: The ATSB assessed the weather products available to the flight crew and did not identify any safety issues in respect of the weather information provided.
The ATSB failed to answer this question (the question was directed at determining the adequacy of ATS procedures for alerting flight crew not whether any safety issues emanated from the information actually provided).
We know the Fiji ATC and New Zealand ATC failed to pass on hazardous weather as defined as an International Standard in Annex 11 and under New Zealand Civil Aviation Rules (see my third submission). Even if an agreement existed which exempted the ATS providers in question to proactively pass on pertinent flight information, the ATSB is a safety investigator not a compliance auditor. The provision of a flight information service is a fundamental obligation of air traffic control to flight crew. There are also clear duty of care obligations in general law to which ATS is subject. For the ATSB to make no comment on the safety impact (regardless of legality) of proactive provision of flight information services is beyond reason. What is more, if the Australian flight crew should have been aware that the local ATS procedures required them to initiate all requests for flight information then the responsibility to ensure that the flight crew knew this rested with the Operator (Pel-Air) as expressed in CAR 223. That the ATSB never examined this question represents serious investigative oversight.
On the subject of the question(above) which the ATSB chose not to answer, it is not credible for the ATSB to state that there …were no safety issues in respect of the weather information provided.
The weather information provided was wrong. At a time when the valid forecast for Norfolk Island was predicting cloud at around 1000 ft. above aerodrome elevation the actual cloud was fluctuating around 500ft (but as low as 200ft.) When the forecast was finally amended it predicted the cloud would be at 500ft temporarily. This untimely amended forecast was made just prior to the aircraft’s arrival at Norfolk Island at a time when the actual cloud level was 200ft. The BoM, despite having access to infrared satellite, aerological diagrams, wind and temperature data for the entire troposphere as well as the Auto Weather Station data from Norfolk Island was in error by 100% at least in its estimates of the cloud level and in error by 6-7 hours in predicting the passage of the low pressure trough. That the ATSB views this as not presenting a safety issue, again begs the questions:
Is the ATSB investigation methodology flawed?
Did the ATSB suffer outcome bias?
Was pressure exerted on the ATSB by CASA?
Gold BA pure gold!!
Off doing a Kelpie…