The proposed movie could be interesting.
ATSB and CASA took a hell of a chance with the initial investigation. What could possibly have been worth taking that chance? There has been much speculation, but we still don't know what was behind this.
Presumably the movie will attempt to answer this.
Was the real explanation that the FAA were in Australia and there was a possibility Australia would be downgraded to Category 2 status? Maybe that was sufficient reason for a fix.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/0...RRA1081_a.html
The timing is astonishingly bad for CASA.
The incident took place 18 Nov 2009. CASA immediately launched a comprehensive safety audit which found multiple deficiencies with the operator (many of these had been previously identified in a routine audit in 2008). This inevitably raised awkward questions about the effectiveness of regulatory oversight.
At the exact same time (30 November - 4 December) , FAA are in Australia conducting their own audit, and expressed concern about "a shortage of properly-trained inspectors and excessive delegation of regulatory functions to carriers."
So what is CASA to do with an awkward safety audit that appeared to precisely support the FAA concerns?
Is this the smoking gun? Is this the reason the safety audit was never passed to ATSB?
Better stock up on popcorn and Choc-tops!