12 Feb 99:
Deputy Director, BASI, faxes BASI Preliminary Report to Uzu Air. Also faxes Preliminary Report to General Manager, Aviation Safety Branch, CASA, Canberra. Also telephoned CASA Canberra to confirm CASA's receipt of the Report. The report stated inter alia: "Examination of the left engine, while still in the wreckage at the accident site, revealed the linkage between the mixture control cable on the carburettor had failed. Subsequent metallurgical examination of these components confirmed that failure was due to overload as a result of impact forces, and that it had not contributed to the accident."
15 Feb 99:
CASA suspends Uzu Air's AOC for a further 28 days and asserts inter alia: "The Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) has been investigating the crash but has not published a preliminary or final report on its causes."
17 Feb 99:
The Cairns Post newspaper publishes an article headed "Crash report rocks CASA," (by this writer) detailing the conflict between CASA's allegations and those of the preliminary BASI report. A fax letter is received on the same morning from Assistant Director, CASA, Canberra, saying: "I have now been made aware of the content of a preliminary report of the accident by BASI. Please note that neither the crash itself, nor the possible causes of the crash, were the, or a decisive consideration in my decision to suspend your AOC. I would have suspended your AOC even if I had been aware of the content of the BASI preliminary report." The Assistant Director did not reveal his reasons for this assertion at that time.
18 Feb 99:
An AAT-directed teleconference is scheduled for 1700, between Uzu counsel, the AAT registrar, and CASA's office of legal counsel, to determine the process of an AAT hearing on the second suspension, and to enable Uzu's counsel to advise CASA of the witnesses Uzu required to examine. Uzu counsel and the AAT were connected. CASA's phone rings out without answering.
19 Feb 99:
CASA office of legal counsel telephones Uzu to advise they had confused the day, thinking the teleconference was set for the following day. Uzu's lawyers indicate that there was no utility in having a telephone conference for a hearing in relation to the first suspension (which is what the telephone conference on 18 February was intended to do) because a second suspension had been issued. Uzu's lawyers indicated that Uzu would now be applying to the AAT for a stay of the second suspension for hearing in the following week.
On the same day Uzu Air provides CASA with a detailed 50-page response to the further 28 day suspension of its AOC, detailing the foregoing events and again raising the question of RPT versus charter.
24 Feb 99:
Uzu's lawyers request the AAT issue three subpoenas to involved CASA staff members to attend the hearing the following day. AAT declines due to inadequate time.
25 Feb 99:
At a cost of about $10,000, Uzu attend AAT Sydney at 0915. At 0930, AAT Vice President's associates advise that CASA will not be attending, due to commitments in Brisbane, but CASA will not object to a telephone hearing. (CASA claims it had earlier advised Uzu and the AAT it would be unable to attend but would not object to a telephone hearing.)
However CASA's counsel objects to any evidence being tendered or any witnesses being called, "on the basis that it is inappropriate for oral evidence to be given at a stay hearing.” Deputy President Chappell rules that oral evidence was not appropriate for that reason.
Creampuff asserts in an earlier post in this thread:
"CASA wasn’t required to attend. It had much better things to do at the time, and chose to do those things."
I assume he is suggesting CASA has some power to decide, in it's sole discretion, whether it attends Tribunal hearings or not.
Uzu, which has now not earned any revenue for 36 days, is therefore again denied an opportunity to confront its accusers, some of whom are on "stress leave", a luxury unavailable to Uzu's general manager or his staff, some of whom have been stood down. CASA however successfully objects to the lifting of the suspension on the grounds of "Air Safety," relying on Section 9 of the Civil Aviation Act.
2 Mar 99:
Meeting in Canberra attended by Uzu's chief pilot, an Uzu consultant, CASA's General Manager, Aviation Operations and CASA's public affairs manager. Uzu was told that CASA wouldn't extend the suspension, but would either lift it, or let it run its course until 16 Mar. The company was also told that CASA would not renew the suspension or cancel the AOC. No explanation was offered as to why, having made that decision, CASA would not lift the suspension immediately.
It was agreed that draft checking and training and maintenance procedures were required and had been submitted, and that checking and training and progressive maintenance would be progressively incorporated.
5 Mar 99:
AAT teleconference between CASA office of legal counsel, Uzu is advised that the relevant DFOM was reviewing the material on Uzu and had indicated that he would not recommend a cancellation. He indicated that he would consider a recommendation to lift the suspension, but only after reviewing the remainder of the material and speaking with airworthiness officers with respect to manuals. He advised that he would attempt to do so by 10 March at the earliest and 12 March at the latest. He also advised even if such a recommendation was made, it was just that. It would be ultimately a matter for the decision maker in Canberra to accept any recommendation.
8 Mar 99:
CASA acting DFOM Cairns advises he is satisfied with the draft manuals and will be making "unspecified recommendations" to CASA Canberra. Uzu's optimism is heightened.
9 Mar 99:
CASA publishes an amended CAO 82.3 and three blanket exemptions, authorising air charter operators in the Torres Straits to operate RPT without meeting the aerodrome, maintenance, or training and checking requirements for RPT until June 9.
CASA's comment: "While the check and training system might have been satisfactory in draft form, the district AW manager was not satisfied with the AW control mechanisms."
Uzu is thus denied access to the March 9 amendments to CAO 82.3, and to the exemptions granted to Torres Strait operators.
10 Mar 99:
AM - CASA shifts the goalposts again. While its competitors, who have been operating for the two months Uzu has been grounded, are still in the air and have 90 days to comply with RPT rules, Uzu is told it must comply BEFORE its AOC is restored.
PM - Uzu's solicitor contacts CASA office of legal counsel and is told the manuals the company has submitted are only DRAFT and that Uzu has not nominated a maintenance controller or check and training captain.
Australian Flying faxes a draft of this chronology to CASA with an invitation to review it for accuracy.
11 Mar 99:
CASA phones and indicates that a response, detailing some "errors and omissions" will be faxed "tomorrow." Australian Flying admits that because of space limitations it has omitted considerable material, much of it damaging to CASA. (Information provided in CASA's response is incorporated in this narrative.)
12 Mar 99:
The CASA response does not arrive. Or maybe, obliquely, it does. A faxed message from CASA to Uzu suspends the AOC for a third period, "pending an investigation by CASA into your company's operations, and the risk to the safety of air navigation in allowing the AOC to continue in force... The reasons for this decision and the facts and circumstances on which I rely are set out below." The letter details thirty-eight points as "facts and circumstances.”
15 Mar 99:
A fax to the Hon. Warren Entsch, Member for Leichhardt, in response to a phone call to CASA from Mr. Entsch, says that for UZU to have its AOC reinstated, it must comply with three requirements - training and checking, Class A maintenance, and an approved maintenance controller, which UZU has already addressed.
24 Mar 99:
In a pre-hearing teleconference between Uzu, CASA and the AAT, the Tribunal indicates that it expects CASA to restore the AOC by close of business on Mar 26, provided the three CASA conditions are met (which UZU insists they already are).
In anticipation of a full AAT hearing the following week, UZU has already applied for summonses requiring CASA personnel to be present at the hearing. This means they will almost certainly be called upon to give evidence and to face cross-examination.
26 Mar 99:
The AAT official indicates that she will be in her office for a further half hour after close of business, and that if the AOC is not restored by that time she will arrange a "substantive" hearing on Monday 29.
Late on Friday afternoon, CASA blinks. In a faxed message UZU is advised its charter AOC is restored "subject to the company implementing Class A maintenance” and check and training - a unique requirement, but at least the company is back in business.
General aviation is not one big happy family; but other operators watched the process with keen interest, and even UZU's commercial rivals were horrified at its implications for the rest of the industry. CASA sources now acknowledge: "the matter could have been better handled".
(Torres note: Within days of the lifting of the AOC suspension, Uzu Air submitted all documentation for the issue of a Remote Area RPT AOC. The issue of the AOC was stalled some weeks by CASA, Canberra (whilst they reviewed an application for a similar AOC by one of Uzu Air’s competitors), however Uzu Air still received the second such AOC in Australia.)
Last edited by Torres; 29th Aug 2003 at 08:25.