Duck Pilot, If you look at the throughput of reports over the last 2 months, its slowed to a dribble. Thats not consistent with high workload.
And they seem to be able to fit collaboration with other bodies and especially overseas authorities into their schedule.
More likely, they are completely absorbed to the point of apoplexy by high profile political cases like the Pelair one. You'd think that if the ATSB mess that up yet again, then they're history.
The Mt Hotham incident that Dick highlights is the one involving Max Quartemain & VH-OWN. My guess is that this has been placed on hold so they can make it align with the Essendon Airport accident investigation. Which you would have to say represents very questionable ethics.
The Mt Hotham airport report was already past due when the Essendon airport accident occurred. My personal unsubstantiated, biased reasoning is that any ATSB report that criticises AsA is very slow coming, and (as Dick pints out) there are some pretty big questions for AsA to answer in this incident. One of which is that AsA claimed to not have radar coverage of the aircraft and yet FlightAware did on its public web page.
I can imagine that the delay in the Mt Hotham report coupled with the Essendon accident puts the ATSB in a difficult position. If they criticise the pilot, then I can imagine there is a gaggle of lawyers warming up in the wings in the USA who will be itching to add the ATSB to the list of litigants.