Phelan's piece is highlighting a Truss media release that came out a week after the report was released..a lot has changed since then but the point you make "K" is relevant and perhaps industry should be starting to lobby Barnaby with their concerns in regards to the Senate report??
Meanwhile over at Sleepy Hollow the wagons appear to be circling...from today's Australian
:
CASA toughens safety rule THE Civil Aviation Safety Authority is to remove a discrepancy in air safety rules brought into focus by the 2009 night-time ditching of a fuel-starved Pel-Air ambulance in the sea off Norfolk Island.
A notice of proposed rule making to regulate fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter air ambulance flights as air transport operations will bring Australia into line with jurisdictions such as Britain, Europe, Canada, New Zealand and the US.
The Pel-Air flight was working under the less onerous "aerial work" capacity and this was seen as a factor in the ditching. The NPRM said Australia was unique among leading industrial nations in classifying medical transport flights as aerial work, and a reclassification would bring the flights into line with International Civil Aviation Organisation regulations.
It said the current aerial work category did not give operators full recognition of their proactive approach to safety or recognise the fundamental purpose of medical transport flights was passenger carriage of people often not in a position to make informed choice about the transport services received.
"Given industry's predisposition to a more risk-averse and safety-focused philosophy, CASA believes that Australia's new aviation safety regulations will benefit from a policy whereby medical transport flights are regulated as an air transport operation and are subject to the same general standards that apply to other passenger transport operations," it said.
The new requirements will mean medical transport operators will need to have to introduce several CASA-approved systems and processes.
These include safety management systems, human factors and non-technical skills training, fatigue management, check and training, operator expositions and maintenance processes with minimum equipment lists. "These systems are, in CASA's opinion, very relevant to the organisational model required for medical transport operations," the NPRM said.
In defining medical transport operations, CASA said it did not intend to classify as medical transport flights such as a search and rescue, which also may involve "coincident patient care" of an injured survivor.
These would remain classified an aerial work emergency service operation, regardless of the delivery of patient care. A flight solely for the purpose of carrying medical supplies also would remain a cargo operation.
"It is CASA's proposed policy that if a flight commences with the express purpose of carrying a medical passenger at any time, then the MT flight is a passenger transport operation for the purposes of Part 119 of CASA and applicable operational rules," it said.
The regulator also considered that "potential additional costs associated with adopting would be outweighed by the safety benefits".
"In many cases, such costs are already absorbed by operators as they have (in their own right) upgraded their business models, for contractual purposes, to meet the proposed AT requirements," it said.
Comments on the proposed rules close on November 27.
Kind of glosses over the cover up (blame the pilot)..of the cover up (hide the paperwork) which was conveniently covered up by the Chambers Report and the dross that was CAIR 09/3...
NB Rule 101 the key to good bureaucratic obfuscation is to deny..deny..deny and then say to the pollies hey look what we've done to fix the problem = contribution to the trough replenishment fund!
