Senator XENOPHON: Yes, I do. When will we get the TSB review of the ATSB? In the next couple of weeks? When do you expect that to be?
Mr Dolan : My colleague Ms Tadros, the chair of the Transportation Safety Board, indicated to me two weeks ago that she expected that a draft would be complete and available to the ATSB for its consideration and factual input by the end of this month but that it was unlikely, given their internal processes, a final report would be available before the end of June.
Senator XENOPHON: So it is a bit later than you expected—and that is the draft. When you say 'factual input', does it mean that you have an opportunity to comment on the conclusions of the TSB?
Mr Dolan : The TSB have made it quite clear that their conclusions will be their conclusions and that they would be addressed in us confirming the factual content of the report to make sure that they have described our processes and other facts correctly.
Senator XENOPHON: Has the TSB provided a briefing to the Aviation Safety Regulation Review?
Mr Dolan : So I understand.
Senator XENOPHON: The ATSB was not present at that?
Mr Dolan : No, I believe it was in Ottawa.
Senator XENOPHON: You will have an opportunity to respond formally to the TSB's report. Is that right?
Mr Dolan : We will have an opportunity to comment on the factual content of a draft report. The report will then, after consideration by the TSB board, be published by the TSB. But since the report was to examine our processes and see where they could be improved, clearly we will have to respond to any findings or recommendations of the report.
Senator XENOPHON: So the draft report, the response to the draft and the final report and the ATSB's response to the final report are all documents that will be released publicly? Is that the case?
Mr Dolan : I do not believe our response to the draft report on matters of fact will necessarily be made public. It would not be the normal way of doing these things, but certainly anything we make public in terms of our response to findings or recommendations of the final report will be made public.
Okay if we concede, barring any political collusion, that the process as described has been adhered to and from discrete inquiries, (with the exception of a few more process delays) this is in fact what has happened then we can expect the TSBC to publish the review report within the next couple of weeks on their website...
However the questions that remain are did the DRAFT report while being checked for factual accuracy etc. get leaked to other parties example; the miniscule, the Dept or indeed the Senate Committee??
Hopefully not otherwise there would be further serious questions on whether the State (miniscule & his Dept) are upholding their responsibilities to Annex 19 to protect the integrity of the State AAI as being supposedly independent & not influenced by any other Govt aviation safety agencies...
Next question is has the DRAFT findings of the TSBC and indeed the Senate AAI report & ASRR report had any effect on the ATsB and how they go about business i.e. have they learnt from the lessons of the past?? Time will ultimately tell but the first indications are not that reassuring...
Back tracking to this post from Kharon:
Nearly under the radar.
Why was this - ATSB - report delayed 30 months? and why was it released under the white noise coverage of Qantas and Virgin reports? Standing alone there is nothing overtly sensitive, except the incident was Feb 2012 the Senate inquiry started in October. It is noteworthy that no SR issued at the time, which is really the main duty of ATSB. But at least another, fluffy politically correct report was issued - eventually.
Benefit of the doubt (& as Kharon alludes); maybe this report was lost in all the 'white noise' emanating from the Senate AAI inquiry and the bureau has simply missed it until now...
Which is a shame because there is some real lessons to be learnt from this investigation and it would appear that ASA proactively attempted to mitigate any future safety risk and they deserve some kudos for this. Unfortunately through the passage of time and the BASR philosophy the true value of the lessons learnt are lost in translation perhaps forever.
MTF...(with another example that has disturbing parallels to the PelAir FRMS cover up)...
Comment: One wonders if the TSBC or NTSB had of been tasked with investigating the incident
AO-2012-029 whether; (a) it would of taken over 30 months to publish a final report or; (b) whether the safety issues highlighted would have automatically necessitated a 'back to reason' promulgation of an SR?? Instead our bureau (with their BASR methodology) have sat on the 'safety issues' highlighted and have not even published, as a 'safety issue', on their website...