First_Principal
11th Dec 2007, 08:26
I read today an interesting article by Walter Wagtendonk in the Dec/Jan Pacific Wings in which he was lambasting the actions of the CAA in respect of some recent (attempted) proscutions and resultant court actions.
Much of the article was given over to detail with respect to a couple of court cases and how this tied in with his premise that the CAA were somewhat over-enthusiastic, or even overbearing, in their approach to correcting the apparently well-intentioned actions of the erstwhile perpertrators.
Now while I'm prepared to take some of these things under advisement so to speak - after all every story has more than one perspective - it does concern me that there could be a drift to a less collaborative and more punitive approach to misdemeanours by our regulating body.
When I returned to aviation a few years ago I was impressed by the implied desire on behalf of CAA to work with people in order to ensure that if an incident occurred we could all learn from it through full and frank disclosure with little fear of prosecution (assuming no intent!). I took this on board and as a result have filled out a number of incident forms when I've felt there was a use and need to do so. In all of the cases I can think of it would have been possible, under a different regime, to have found a person to blame and to punish. However in all but possibly one case I am completely of the opinion that this would have been detrimental and not have lead to a particularly positive outcome. In fact I suspect I would not have filed the incident form because my interest was definately in providing some information as to what occurred purely so that others could learn from it. In two of the cases I took direct action and as a result of that the parties involved have learnt from the incident and now have different procedures in place. This post action was included in the incident form for CAA's information. All-in-all a positive result I would have thought.
So while there is certainly a place for prosecution in deliberate, repetitive or otherwise blatant breaches of regulations or common-sense I would be interested to hear from others what their views are in respect of the education vs punishment issues raised? Mr Wagtendonk is suggesting the formation of an aviation Ombudsmans Office, citing his concerns with the recent actions and apparent direction of CAA. I'm a little ambivalent about that presently but at the same time I'm certainly wary of anything that would promote a more prevalent 'them 'n us' attitude between the wider industry and CAA. This would quickly destroy any collegial and educative spirit that has been built to date, leading to people hiding incidents
which in turn could well result in a greater number of real issues down the track. I most certainly don't want to become involved with one of those issues because of someones desire to punish rather than lead and educate. Am I paranoid or is this drift a reality?
Much of the article was given over to detail with respect to a couple of court cases and how this tied in with his premise that the CAA were somewhat over-enthusiastic, or even overbearing, in their approach to correcting the apparently well-intentioned actions of the erstwhile perpertrators.
Now while I'm prepared to take some of these things under advisement so to speak - after all every story has more than one perspective - it does concern me that there could be a drift to a less collaborative and more punitive approach to misdemeanours by our regulating body.
When I returned to aviation a few years ago I was impressed by the implied desire on behalf of CAA to work with people in order to ensure that if an incident occurred we could all learn from it through full and frank disclosure with little fear of prosecution (assuming no intent!). I took this on board and as a result have filled out a number of incident forms when I've felt there was a use and need to do so. In all of the cases I can think of it would have been possible, under a different regime, to have found a person to blame and to punish. However in all but possibly one case I am completely of the opinion that this would have been detrimental and not have lead to a particularly positive outcome. In fact I suspect I would not have filed the incident form because my interest was definately in providing some information as to what occurred purely so that others could learn from it. In two of the cases I took direct action and as a result of that the parties involved have learnt from the incident and now have different procedures in place. This post action was included in the incident form for CAA's information. All-in-all a positive result I would have thought.
So while there is certainly a place for prosecution in deliberate, repetitive or otherwise blatant breaches of regulations or common-sense I would be interested to hear from others what their views are in respect of the education vs punishment issues raised? Mr Wagtendonk is suggesting the formation of an aviation Ombudsmans Office, citing his concerns with the recent actions and apparent direction of CAA. I'm a little ambivalent about that presently but at the same time I'm certainly wary of anything that would promote a more prevalent 'them 'n us' attitude between the wider industry and CAA. This would quickly destroy any collegial and educative spirit that has been built to date, leading to people hiding incidents
which in turn could well result in a greater number of real issues down the track. I most certainly don't want to become involved with one of those issues because of someones desire to punish rather than lead and educate. Am I paranoid or is this drift a reality?