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Old 1st Jun 2016, 02:44
  #31 (permalink)  
Old Akro
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Melbourne
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Reading between the lines, it seems to me that the report finds that both crews made reasonable decisions and acted within the CASA regulations (including the below minima landing).

They were caught out by a 5% probability weather event at Adelaide that occurred simultaneously with a 1% probability weather event at Mildura.

It appears that all parties acted within their procedural requirements, but ATC and the BOM did not meet best practice benchmarks primarily in communicating a METAR and some changed forecast data. It would appear that this would not be acceptable under regulations in other jurisdictions.

The whole deal was exacerbated by failure of the Mildura AWIS. The report notes that it was unavailable on THE DAY, but fails to mention if it was U/S for a single day or a longer period. I think that the report could have included an evaluation of AsA's performance in maintaining critical facilities such as this or an analysis of the "uptime" of these facilities.

Frankly, I found it a bit alarming to read that the BOM's primary fog observation mechanism for Mildura is satellite images. Mildura is an RPT airport with significant ground based personnel. The report skips over this, but I'm prepared to bet that territorial bureaucratic rules prevent the BOM using one of the existing ground staff for weather observations.

Autoland and the decision not use use it features in the report and these discussions on this board, but it should be remembered that Adelaide airport is not certified for autoland. If the pilots had landed and something went wrong, they may well have been crucified. On the information they had available at the time, they took a sound, conservative decision. The real question is why Australia has an International airport that is not Cat III certified. Surely, in this day and age that is the infrastucture you expect from a first world country.

So, my reading is. Pilots: OK. ATC: OK rules & procedures: big question mark. Infrastructure: big question mark. BOM: question mark.

In the words of Cool Hand Luke "what we have here is a failure to communicate". And all roads lead to government instrumentalities.
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