This report is a complete joke.
The discussions here so far have missed the main point of this incident. I find a lot of similarities with the ATSBs handling of the disgraced Norfolk Is investigation and report on this incident. In both cases the ATSB has deliberately attempted to deflect any blame from BoM, CASA, Airsevices or any other government agency and has tried, and failed, to blame the crew.
Completely agree. Government departments spending three years getting each others' backsides covered before finally releasing the report and hanging the crew out to dry. Same as Pelair.
1. The report doesn't place enough emphasis on the seriousness. Had one or both of these aircraft's automation not tracked the RNAV so accurately, we could have been looking at hundreds of dead bodies. This was a deadly serious occurrence where the last piece of cheese which saved the day was pot luck.
2. The elephant in the room was completely avoided - still CASA allows RPT to plan to a remote single runway destination.
3. The quality of the forecasts has dropped so much in twenty years. BoM understaffed - quite possibly, but get it fixed. I don't expect forecasts to be 100% all of the time, but last five years they've been a joke. "Fog forecasting is hard" in the report... No ****!!! But they used to get it right twenty years ago, why not now?
4. How long was the VOR AWIS not repaired? "Months" is the rumour I heard the other day. Why wasn't it fixed? Why did it happen to get fixed within a day of the incident occurring? Why didn't the ATSB mention this? What a huge cover up!! Had it been working, at TOPC out of Adelaide, the crew would have tuned in and realised Mildura was turning to crap. They could have turned around and done an autoland. FIX YOUR EQUIPMENT, ASA. This is why airports are forced to install their own AWIS VHF - ASA don't want the liability and cost of maintaining navaid AWIS, they're washing their hands of it.
5. Why do we only have one cat III ILS in the entire country? Mildura takes bunch of high capacity RPT every day. Why doesn't it have at least one or two ILS?
ATSB - complete joke, have lost all respect, in bed with regulator.
BOM - give them the money they need to get the forecasts right
ASA - stop wasting money on bull**** and spend it on infrastructure, like ILS and AWIS and maintenance
Pilots - do exactly what we were doing thirty years ago, with half the support, half the navaids, half the fuel - with the knowledge that if all the holes line up, you'll get hung out to dry by the ATSB.