Kharon:
But was Mildura not a passing strange choice though?; Brisvegas to Adelaide track, (round numbers, broad brush) from dim memory (Venel is it ?) was about 210 nms from Adelaide. From there it's 275 ish to Adelaide and it's "about" 260 nms to Melbourne, well before TOD anyway, lets say, for sake of argument 35 minutes out, 15 before TOD. Plenty of options from there. Even from o' head YMIA it's only what? 250 nms to Melbourne as opposed to 180 odd nms to Adelaide. That's only + 70 odd miles, which, in a 73 series anything, is not too long a stretch. The Adelaide met data does show the trend toward fog, so I am left, still wondering, why risk Mildura, provided Melbourne was readily available?
According to Abe Froeman:
Been told [the Captain] cut his teeth flying turbo props flying Adl to Mql in his younger days.
Perhaps his familiarity with Mildura was a factor? (My recollection may be inaccurate, but wasn’t there an incident about a decade ago during which the captain of an international aircraft inbound to Sydney(??) made a decision to divert to Tamworth(??), which was the aerodrome at which he’d done his training, and had to be practically ‘ordered’ by the on-ground chief pilot to divert to Williamtown(??) due to fuel considerations?
Anyway, the genius of the ATSB’s ‘beyond Reason’ approach will now come to the fore:
Investigation? Done!
Zero systemic issues. Only violations by the PIC.
CASA ‘deals’ with the pilot and everyone’s happy and safe!
