.... and I do agree that everybody is human and therefore make mistakes.... read on.
I missed the program, as I've been "placed" by work somewhere for a week or so that doesn't seem to pick-up SBS out here at all, so have no idea the topics discussed on the show WRT CASA etc. I do however, catch the drift of what it may have been, and found Creamy's words....
.....No wonder nothing changes. What’s touted as in-depth analysis is shallow, easily refuted, easily discredited, pap....
That's quite funny, I've personally heard and seen the same allegations levelled at a couple of investigative members of CASA from the BK office about some of their "homework" and "CASA facts" (read baseless, lies and non-provable), during an investigation into a company based in the Sydney basin not very long ago.
The minute that these slanderous acts and allegations (that appear not to have to be actually substantiable by the investigator that levels them), are able to be held against the investigator that makes them and be prosecuted as such, the better for all cocerned. It is about an age-old value that is held very high by some people, and that is that no matter what you do with your life
YOU, and only you, are responsible for your own actions. Investigators and CASA boffins should not be able to hide behind legal priviledge and get away with being personally non-accountable for their own actions.
It would level the playing field somewhat if there was much more emphasis on "getting it right" before laying allegations at an operator for supposedly doing something wrong.
For example...... An investigator is interviewing a person who at one stage was a pax on XYZ airlines VH-ABC a/c (say a third level airline Pa-31), that went from point D to point E, across the Great Divide on a mid summer's afternoon during some convective wx some months ago. Now this investigator has gained the names of all the pax who have travelled with XYZ Airlines over the past 12 months from a recent routine audit. Our investigator has been busy ringing odd names at random and asking all sorts of probing questions. This pax (who has never flown much in small a/c and in fact has only ever before travelled on such a/c as manufactured by companies such as Airbus or Boeing, and as such has only these airframe types to relate pax comfort and ride to), tells the investigator that the flight was very bumpy and the s/he believed that the wings were going to fall off it was so rough. She states that she thought she was going to die, and will never travel with these people again because
in her opinion they were likely to die at any moment and were not safe.
Is this pax (witness statement), correct? On what grounds are there to be able to say with certainty that the witness actually has any idea that the turbulence (whether or not pilot induced), would be atypical of an a/c of this size, or indeed manufacturer. So why would an investigator be able to launch such an allegation at an operator (in a "show cause" cum "counselling" session - funny name for a lynch mob), which may indeed have no basis of fact, and yet significant wieght is placed behind such statements as they are labelled as "CASA facts" so therefore must be right, without ever being proven as baseless in a court of law. This being true as the observer has had no formal training as such in metalurgy etc, and has no real perception of design loads and the ultimate integrity of an airframe.
Much is made in this industry of having the right qualifications to do many aspects of the job, and indeed even constant checking and training is almost mandatory to retain proficiency. What qualified our "observer" pax to make such a claim as the flight was dangerous?
Or was it just uncomfortable?
A
fact is something that is provable and cannot be denied.
A
CASA fact doesn't appear to have to be able to be proven. Anywhere.
Knowing that some from our regulator read these pages.... Please level the playing field for all, and for god sake make it soon, so that there will still be an industry for you to actually manage.