Guardian: Leaked CAA report
Cost-cutting and an overstretched workforce at the Civil Aviation Authority have increased the risk of air accidents in Britain, according to a leaked internal report drafted by the air safety regulator but never released.
Inspectors at the CAA, which oversees flight safety, warned bosses that they did not have the resources to do their job properly, the draft report shows.
There were “significant weaknesses” in the CAA’s safety division, including the monitoring of flight training and the licensing of pilots, the report said.
The provisional report – produced by the CAA’s head of strategy and safety assurance at the request of senior directors but never published – warned that the problems it identified were “those most likely to feature as contributory causal factors in aircraft accidents”.
Ouch.