More good stuff from BA that perhaps takes us back to the days before Beaker and when the bureau properly utilised their powers of proper, balanced investigation as defined by the TSI Act
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25. Documentation indicates a s32 request was made on 4 July 2012 for the CASA Special Audit.
When was the audit sent by CASA? When did it arrive? The committee is aware of the fact
that the ATSB knew about the CASA Special Audit when the audit was announced. That being the case, why did the ATSB wait for over two years to request it? Your supplementary
submission (annex), which covers where the special audit was included in the ATSB report,
appears to come from the March version of the report. Is that the case? How can the ATSB
report refer to the Special Audit in the March 2012 draft when it appears the ATSB were not
yet in possession of it?
ATSB response: As advised in its 14 December 2012 response to the Committee’s questions on notice of 21 November 2012, the ATSB requested a copy of the CASA Special Audit Report under a S32 notice on 4 July 2012. A copy of the special audit was received by the ATSB on 9 July 2012.
As part of its investigations, the ATSB has not routinely obtained CASA Special Audits. As an independent investigation agency, the ATSB focuses on obtaining its own evidence in consideration of its evolving investigation hypotheses, and in support of its analysis and findings. This need not include the results of investigations or other activities that may be undertaken by other agencies for their own purposes. The decision of whether to obtain such outputs by other agencies would generally be informed by the evidence already gained by the ATSB’s investigation, and the perceived benefits of obtaining them.
This is a false statement and one which contravenes everything the ATSB is required to do under the TSI Act 2003 and Annex 13.The ATSB historically has always sought as much information from CASA as possible including that contained in audits, since breaches of Regulations, Acts, Orders, procedures (i.e. risk controls), as identified in the special audit are well known to be critical to safety
The ATSB knew the special audit existed but failed to request it. CASA would have known that the information contained therein would have been relevant to the ATSB yet failed to provide it to the ATSB as required under the MoU.
I served a section 32 request on the Queensland Government Premiers Office cabinet in confidence documentation on an "internal report" on the dangers of night visual flying for helicopter air ambulance operations. The release of this document proved useful in shifting the Governments position on such operations and subsequently funding was provided which ended a long held practice which was at the heart of many previous fatalities in that state. In addition the ATSB and CASA have a MOU which encourages the sharing of information .
I believe that between BA, PAIN, Davies, the Senate inquiry, this thread etc, coupled with the retrieval of the CVR/FDR, we could rewrite an excellent and extremely valuable final report at very little extra cost to the taxpayer and all totally independent of ATSBeaker/FF. After all Beaker has now forfeited his right to legitimately reopen the investigation...
