Wirraway
13th Aug 2004, 16:59
Sat "Weekend Australian"
Fly-boys reach for the skies
The ongoing quarrel over safety rules for flying is in a class of its own, report aviation writer Steve Creedy and FOI editor Michael McKinnon
August 14, 2004
IT was aviator Dick Smith's new baby, a fresh attempt at reforming Australia's skies, backed by Qantas and championed by Smith's new best buddy, Transport Minister John Anderson.
The outspoken entrepreneur had overcome an acrimonious split with Anderson that had ended his turbulent reign as Civil Aviation Safety Authority chairman in 1999 to become a founding member of the minister's airspace reform group. As Australia moved into 2002 with the promise of a US-style airspace system that could save the aviation industry up to $100 million a year, Smith's long battle to change the way Australians fly seemed to be at last in his grasp.
But the long journey begun in 1991 had a few twists and turns in it yet.
Fast-forward to 2004 and Smith is once more shouting his frustration from the sidelines as the country's new US-style National Airspace System struggles.
Airspace changes introduced on November 27 last year divided the aviation industry, prompted the resignation of the chairman of regulator Airservices Australia, John Forsyth, and two senior air traffic controllers and eventually attracted an embarrassing admission the introduction was botched.
The new system downgraded swaths of so-called Class C airspace, where planes are separated from each by air traffic controllers, to less controlled Class E, where the onus is on the pilot to look for small planes.
The reforms began to unravel after an Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation into a near miss between a light aircraft and Virgin Blue airliner over Launceston recommended authorities take another look at the changes. The report resulted in a radar unit being sent to Tasmania and prompted Airservices to introduce new procedures and what it says is the most intense scrutiny of airspace undertaken in Australia.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Weekend Australian show Airservices knew as far back as last February that the November reforms, known as NAS 2(b), had resulted in a "major degradation" of safety, despite federal government claims to the contrary. The Weekend Australian has since learned that the risks of fatalities or collisions at some regional airports were three to five times higher under the new system than under the old.
The changes also meant that at least two regional airports -- Hobart and Albury -- faced an "intolerable risk" because of the changes. Hobart, for example, faced a statistical fatality every 18.5 years compared with every 64.5 years under the old system. The risk translates to fewer than 0.21 collisions every 100 years. But it was enough to produce immediate procedural changes aimed at reducing risk.
Another analysis attributed six "airprox" incidents, where aircraft come close enough to pose a threat to safety, to NAS 2(b) and concluded "the general number and severity" of these incidents was higher in 2003-04 than the previous year. Underscoring this sobering news was an even more startling revelation: confusion between government agencies also allowed the reforms to be introduced without an adequate risk review.
Authorities are allowed to increase the risk in an airspace as long as they can prove it is balanced by sufficient benefits. Despite repeated internal warnings, Airservices failed to carry out a study to prove this was the case and worse, when it did, it was unable to uncover those significant benefits.
Airservices found itself legally exposed as the party responsible for justifying any increase in risk, no matter how low. "In the process of progressing the Government's decision to introduce NAS, we relied on a CASA assessment that no design-safety case was required for elements of stage 2(b)," says Airservices spokesman Richard Dudley.
"This decision was deficient from a governance perspective because Airservices Australia, as the airspace authority with the accountability for airspace regulation, was bound to follow its usual practices of applying the safety management system."
Initial reports indicated the risks of some aspects of NAS 2(b) were bigger than expected and the benefits much smaller.
Talk circulated of a significant rollback of the November changes and a comprehensive study was launched to ascertain just how far that would have to go. The board ordered studies into changes to higher-level airspace and those made in airspace over airports, particularly at regional centres.
Those studies -- whose validity is disputed by opponents of the reversal -- used mathematical modelling to compare the risks in both scenarios. They were reviewed by an outside firm, Risk and Reliability Associates, and balanced against a cost-benefit analysis by Access Economics.
"We've always had as part of our safety management system a risk-identification and assessment process," says Dudley. "But what we have now could be regarded as state-of-the art in the sense it is the most rigorous, independently analysed safety assessment program done by this organisation in relation to any airspace change or any other program for that matter."
The two studies aimed to quantify how much risk had increased as a result of the introduction of Class E. Bigger planes that fly using instruments must get clearance to enter Class E airspace and are separated from each other, but smaller planes flying on what is known as visual flight rules were not separated and, initially, not required to announce their presence.
Although this was offset by a requirement that all planes operating in Class E carry a transponder, a device that would alert air traffic controllers and collision avoidance systems to an aircraft's presence, commercial pilots viewed this as a last line of defence and worried the transponders would not work or small plane pilots would forget to turn them on.
A detailed risk analysis of higher-level Class E airspace on routes between destinations concluded it did not significantly reduce safety but there was little financial benefit to the change, less than $4.9 million over 10 years. That analysis, also obtained by The Weekend Australian, used methods such as simulations to conclude Class E airspace was slightly riskier than Class C.
But the risk to both passengers and aircrew was still below the maximum tolerable and Airservices believed the removal of certain procedures smoothed out the safety reduction associated with the downgrade from Class C.
"Overall, retaining Class E en route is best characterised as generating a useful, though modest, economic net benefit with minimal increase in fatality risk," Access Economics concluded.
As a result, Airservices is set to keep the en route (between rather than near airports) Class E airspace with some modifications. The modifications include different height limits in radar airspace between Sydney and Melbourne and the removal of certain visual procedures previously available in non-radar Class E airspace.
When it came to examining the most contentious of the November reforms, the decision to downgrade Class C airspace over regional airports to Class E, the results were far less reassuring.
It was this reform that was the main focus of a safety campaign by unions worried about the potential of a midair collision between a passenger plane and small aircraft.
The Australian Federation of Air Pilots, the Australian and International Pilots Association and the air traffic control union Civil Air had written jointly to Anderson two months before the NAS 2(b) changes warning there would be an overall reduction in safety standards.
Regional airports are surrounded by the lowest height class of airspace, Class D, where big planes are separated from each other but not from smaller planes.
The new system placed an inverted wedding cake of Class E steps on top of the Class D airspace.
Commercial pilots and air traffic controllers argued that the new system increased the risk of midair collision because they might not necessarily know that a small plane in Class E was nearby.
Their campaign did not play well with the Government and as late as April this year Anderson was still accusing the unions of running "an inaccurate industrial and political campaign".
"It was not about an industrial issue, it was about us being comfortable that we did our absolute best by the travelling public," says Australian and International Pilots Association technical and safety director Richard Woodward.
Airservices canvassed several long-term options, including doing nothing, before narrowing the field to two, known as option three and the industry option. Last week, it announced it was working only on option three and expected to make a final decision this month, pending the completion of a quantitative study and an implementation safety case. Option three retains en-route Class E airspace but returns the airspace E over Class D airports to Class C.
The announcement has infuriated Smith, who is spearheading a campaign of sports and general aviation groups aimed at overturning option three.
Small-plane owners want the greatest freedom at the lowest cost and see option three as a significant rollback of the original airspace reforms.
Smith, a private pilot, believes the Airservices low-level risk study is flawed and is pressuring Airservices and Anderson to be allowed access so he can have his experts put it under the microscope. "Analyse what we're doing at the moment, we're planning to wind back the system and put Class C, which is a terminal airspace for places like Sydney, on top of Coffs Harbour," he says.
Now on his fifth attempt to shepherd through airspace reform, Smith can be expected to fight any rollback with all the resources at his disposal.
============================================
Fly-boys reach for the skies
The ongoing quarrel over safety rules for flying is in a class of its own, report aviation writer Steve Creedy and FOI editor Michael McKinnon
August 14, 2004
IT was aviator Dick Smith's new baby, a fresh attempt at reforming Australia's skies, backed by Qantas and championed by Smith's new best buddy, Transport Minister John Anderson.
The outspoken entrepreneur had overcome an acrimonious split with Anderson that had ended his turbulent reign as Civil Aviation Safety Authority chairman in 1999 to become a founding member of the minister's airspace reform group. As Australia moved into 2002 with the promise of a US-style airspace system that could save the aviation industry up to $100 million a year, Smith's long battle to change the way Australians fly seemed to be at last in his grasp.
But the long journey begun in 1991 had a few twists and turns in it yet.
Fast-forward to 2004 and Smith is once more shouting his frustration from the sidelines as the country's new US-style National Airspace System struggles.
Airspace changes introduced on November 27 last year divided the aviation industry, prompted the resignation of the chairman of regulator Airservices Australia, John Forsyth, and two senior air traffic controllers and eventually attracted an embarrassing admission the introduction was botched.
The new system downgraded swaths of so-called Class C airspace, where planes are separated from each by air traffic controllers, to less controlled Class E, where the onus is on the pilot to look for small planes.
The reforms began to unravel after an Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation into a near miss between a light aircraft and Virgin Blue airliner over Launceston recommended authorities take another look at the changes. The report resulted in a radar unit being sent to Tasmania and prompted Airservices to introduce new procedures and what it says is the most intense scrutiny of airspace undertaken in Australia.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Weekend Australian show Airservices knew as far back as last February that the November reforms, known as NAS 2(b), had resulted in a "major degradation" of safety, despite federal government claims to the contrary. The Weekend Australian has since learned that the risks of fatalities or collisions at some regional airports were three to five times higher under the new system than under the old.
The changes also meant that at least two regional airports -- Hobart and Albury -- faced an "intolerable risk" because of the changes. Hobart, for example, faced a statistical fatality every 18.5 years compared with every 64.5 years under the old system. The risk translates to fewer than 0.21 collisions every 100 years. But it was enough to produce immediate procedural changes aimed at reducing risk.
Another analysis attributed six "airprox" incidents, where aircraft come close enough to pose a threat to safety, to NAS 2(b) and concluded "the general number and severity" of these incidents was higher in 2003-04 than the previous year. Underscoring this sobering news was an even more startling revelation: confusion between government agencies also allowed the reforms to be introduced without an adequate risk review.
Authorities are allowed to increase the risk in an airspace as long as they can prove it is balanced by sufficient benefits. Despite repeated internal warnings, Airservices failed to carry out a study to prove this was the case and worse, when it did, it was unable to uncover those significant benefits.
Airservices found itself legally exposed as the party responsible for justifying any increase in risk, no matter how low. "In the process of progressing the Government's decision to introduce NAS, we relied on a CASA assessment that no design-safety case was required for elements of stage 2(b)," says Airservices spokesman Richard Dudley.
"This decision was deficient from a governance perspective because Airservices Australia, as the airspace authority with the accountability for airspace regulation, was bound to follow its usual practices of applying the safety management system."
Initial reports indicated the risks of some aspects of NAS 2(b) were bigger than expected and the benefits much smaller.
Talk circulated of a significant rollback of the November changes and a comprehensive study was launched to ascertain just how far that would have to go. The board ordered studies into changes to higher-level airspace and those made in airspace over airports, particularly at regional centres.
Those studies -- whose validity is disputed by opponents of the reversal -- used mathematical modelling to compare the risks in both scenarios. They were reviewed by an outside firm, Risk and Reliability Associates, and balanced against a cost-benefit analysis by Access Economics.
"We've always had as part of our safety management system a risk-identification and assessment process," says Dudley. "But what we have now could be regarded as state-of-the art in the sense it is the most rigorous, independently analysed safety assessment program done by this organisation in relation to any airspace change or any other program for that matter."
The two studies aimed to quantify how much risk had increased as a result of the introduction of Class E. Bigger planes that fly using instruments must get clearance to enter Class E airspace and are separated from each other, but smaller planes flying on what is known as visual flight rules were not separated and, initially, not required to announce their presence.
Although this was offset by a requirement that all planes operating in Class E carry a transponder, a device that would alert air traffic controllers and collision avoidance systems to an aircraft's presence, commercial pilots viewed this as a last line of defence and worried the transponders would not work or small plane pilots would forget to turn them on.
A detailed risk analysis of higher-level Class E airspace on routes between destinations concluded it did not significantly reduce safety but there was little financial benefit to the change, less than $4.9 million over 10 years. That analysis, also obtained by The Weekend Australian, used methods such as simulations to conclude Class E airspace was slightly riskier than Class C.
But the risk to both passengers and aircrew was still below the maximum tolerable and Airservices believed the removal of certain procedures smoothed out the safety reduction associated with the downgrade from Class C.
"Overall, retaining Class E en route is best characterised as generating a useful, though modest, economic net benefit with minimal increase in fatality risk," Access Economics concluded.
As a result, Airservices is set to keep the en route (between rather than near airports) Class E airspace with some modifications. The modifications include different height limits in radar airspace between Sydney and Melbourne and the removal of certain visual procedures previously available in non-radar Class E airspace.
When it came to examining the most contentious of the November reforms, the decision to downgrade Class C airspace over regional airports to Class E, the results were far less reassuring.
It was this reform that was the main focus of a safety campaign by unions worried about the potential of a midair collision between a passenger plane and small aircraft.
The Australian Federation of Air Pilots, the Australian and International Pilots Association and the air traffic control union Civil Air had written jointly to Anderson two months before the NAS 2(b) changes warning there would be an overall reduction in safety standards.
Regional airports are surrounded by the lowest height class of airspace, Class D, where big planes are separated from each other but not from smaller planes.
The new system placed an inverted wedding cake of Class E steps on top of the Class D airspace.
Commercial pilots and air traffic controllers argued that the new system increased the risk of midair collision because they might not necessarily know that a small plane in Class E was nearby.
Their campaign did not play well with the Government and as late as April this year Anderson was still accusing the unions of running "an inaccurate industrial and political campaign".
"It was not about an industrial issue, it was about us being comfortable that we did our absolute best by the travelling public," says Australian and International Pilots Association technical and safety director Richard Woodward.
Airservices canvassed several long-term options, including doing nothing, before narrowing the field to two, known as option three and the industry option. Last week, it announced it was working only on option three and expected to make a final decision this month, pending the completion of a quantitative study and an implementation safety case. Option three retains en-route Class E airspace but returns the airspace E over Class D airports to Class C.
The announcement has infuriated Smith, who is spearheading a campaign of sports and general aviation groups aimed at overturning option three.
Small-plane owners want the greatest freedom at the lowest cost and see option three as a significant rollback of the original airspace reforms.
Smith, a private pilot, believes the Airservices low-level risk study is flawed and is pressuring Airservices and Anderson to be allowed access so he can have his experts put it under the microscope. "Analyse what we're doing at the moment, we're planning to wind back the system and put Class C, which is a terminal airspace for places like Sydney, on top of Coffs Harbour," he says.
Now on his fifth attempt to shepherd through airspace reform, Smith can be expected to fight any rollback with all the resources at his disposal.
============================================