CASA vs. Industry

[ppng]

I see that CASA are recruiting. How does AUD$116K compare with the going rate for an experienced IFR heavy twin driver in the Oz commercial world?

[SASless]

One should not peer into the gravy bowl and wonder how deep it is.

If you have an amazing ability to bite your lip, hand salute, and mind your manners....guvmint jobs are great for those seeking security, low stress, and the ability to become invisible.

The pay check comes on time each month, the medical benefits are great, your holidays are safe, your annual leave comes on schedule, and ever getting laid off or having to take a cut in pay or benefits is not a real risk.

Take your frontal lobotomy and sign on.

I am a Yank and know nothing of CASA but I have seen the FAA and other like organizations around the world.....OZ can not be any different I would bet.

[Shell Management]

That's the typical American disease - assuming the rest of the world is either scary or just like Mainstreet USA.

[High Nr]

That $116K can be improved on if you are the correct person.

However that $$ amount does not tell the entire story.

The Superannuation system is better than most, and has set many people up for their older years.

CASA is now an attractive employer in today’s industry, where stability is becoming paramount with all the $$ uncertainty around the world.

Sure it can be boring compared to some of the more dynamic aspects of the industry. I guess it depends on your stage in life and you capacity to help influence the industry.

CASA also has come a long way!

Long gone are the days when the organisation was run like an old boys club [normally ex Military] with the Higher than Thou Attitude, to one that is now a highly consultative organisation with new blood and a fresh approach.

However if you wish to remain aircraft current and retain your basic handling skills, maybe you should stay in the industry mainstream as the CASA flying rate is less than optimum.

[SASless]

Shelly,

The Annointed One made it quite clear we don't do that anymore....were you not listening?

Perhaps if your boss fellah uses that line he might get Obama to order the DOJ to drop the legal actions against your firm.....making a huge donation to his library and campaign fund might grease the skids for you.

[spinwing]

Mmmm ....

Actually SASy is pretty close to being "spot on" (re post #2) ... though the said "Antipodean Airship Pilots Authority" are no way near as bad as the UK version ....YET!

:eek:

[Brian Abraham]

Shelly, you have lead a sheltered life. But that's management for you (world wide). ;)

[22clipper]

2 . Damning audit slams CASA's safety record

Ben Sandilands writes:



The myth of Australian leadership in air safety has been exposed in a damning audit (http://redirect.cmailer.com.au/LinkRedirector.aspx?clid=272e4a31-3413-4c3f-b7b3-00f853ad2232&rid=5d1b9ab0-e646-4325-9108-1be835cf7c92) by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
In the final report of the audit carried out in February 2008 the body finds CASA lacks the competencies, resources, training, and regulatory powers to carry out a broad range of critical functions and meet Australia’s obligations under the ICAO treaty.
While Australia's response in the sanitised final version of the audit pledges to fix deficiencies by no later than the end of this year, they will require a far better use of the hundreds of millions of dollars it has so clearly wasted each year on the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of CASA in the ten years since the previous ICAO audit.
The audit is a huge wake up call to the government, which left much of the dead wood bureaucracy which was responsible for air transport administration under the previous government in place.
This is the world’s peak aviation safety organisation telling Canberra that CASA is so inept it didn’t even exercise oversight of the strict operational requirements of ETOPS or long range operations over water of twin engined wide bodied airliners, like Qantas A330s and V Australia 777-300 ERs.
It finds CASA hasn’t even exercised effective oversight over those it delegates from industry to carry out functions on its behalf and those it directly employs are inadequately trained or monitored.
ICAO says that in CASA in general "the training provided to technical staff is insufficient to address the competency requirements for all the technical tasks."

ICAO found that "There are no regulations in Australia that…clearly define the direct accountability for safety on the part of senior managements of airlines."

This is one of the foundations of airline governance in the developed world, in defining the corporate responsibility for maintaining safety standards by airline executives.

It even found that Australia didn’t compel airlines to preserve to the maximum extent flight black box recorders in the event of a crash or serious incident.

Australia had either deficient or non existent rules for the reporting of sub standard or fake spare parts for aircraft and had failed to develop a program to ensure the safe transport of dangerous goods by air.
Regardless of what undertakings or remedial action CASA claims it is now undertaking, the audit shows that the last 10 years of safety oversight have been dysfunctional and inadequate.
The audit’s final report is a negotiated document. The audit team provides the interested parties with a draft, those parties take exception or otherwise to the wording, and a to-and-fro process occurs which retains the conclusions made by the auditors but in a language the parties are prepared to live with.

The audit was also conducted between 18-28 February last year, well before the CASA special audit of Qantas discovered that the airline’s safety standards were slipping, and also, that CASA had been clueless or mute as the case may be about those failings for years prior.

The audit was over when Qantas discovered it had forgotten a crucial airworthiness directive to complete modifications to the forward pressure bulkhead in five of its Boeing 737-400s, but then claimed it didn’t matter anyhow.

It did. It was serious. Airworthiness directives are by definition serious directions to remedy air safety issues. The former head of engineering, David Cox, who played down the matter has since left Qantas, and CASA to this day has denied officially having any responsibility for tracking and ensuring compliance with airworthiness directives.

The audit recommends that Australia sufficiently fund its air safety investigator, the ATSB so that it can investigate all rather than a selection of significant accidents and incidents and fulfil its ICAO treaty obligations in that regard.

Two things stand out from this report.

One is that Australia has agreed to fix almost all of these issues by the end of this year, which will require profound and widespread change in CASA.

The other is that for close on ten years prior to this audit the reputation of Australia as a leader in aviation safety was more the result of luck than rigor.

[spinwing]

Mmmm ...

Well the above mentioned article infers that these deficiancies have only occurred over the past ten years...

In my opinion the regulatory body has been going down hill since about the time they ceased being "The Dept. of Civil Aviation".

Over the years with rules being written, re-written, abandoned and then plagiarised from other countries and modified to suit has left more than a few Australian Aviators confused, annoyed or just plain "pissed off".

Too many "office wallahs" with too much say and NO aviation background making rules which had anybody with an aviation background leaving the beaurocracy as soon as they could making room for even more public servants with no aviation knowledge.

Far from trying to promote aviation as its charter suggests the effect is that of reducing the availability of aviation to the public either by putting costs up or increasing the regulatory burden to the point where most of "General Aviation" can't keep up to survive .... very sad ... and all in the name of safety.


:ugh:

[topendtorque]

All comments, spot on. sasless esp., except when thing got tough with our rep body what happened? the deck chairs got shuffled, not once but many times over many years which led widely to the inconclusiveness that this report has aired.

Mind you I put a heck of lot of this down to the very small necked bottle that we had leading this organisation for a few years, yep he who was going to fix everything! the tricky one!

Spinner is also very correct, what was the organisation? DCA, Dof A, DOT, CASA, I mean letterhead changes cost useless megabucks and nowadays we are going on about a few tonnes of CO2 in the stratosphere. big deal!

Air safety improvement is supposed to be being led by some high fatulin' organisation that has so far produced nothing but hot air and very warm in the stomach motherhood statements coupled to statistical drivel. But, absolutely nothing on the coal face as yet, nor in the foreseeable future.

Then again, oh yeah, there are some tremendous targets laying around for everyone (especially politicians) to rinse down with their pinet noir, then p**s out tomorrow morning.

Not that we should be surprised, this ASFA turnout seems to be represented by coffee circle reputations rather than serious hard nock professionals. I guess that's life. I seriously hope that I am corrected here.

I must say though even though most people feel nowadays that to recourse to CASA on, say a engineering dilemna, in case one is suspected of suspicion of investigation, that there still is some true good pros, in the outfit. god 'elp 'em.

[Brian Abraham]

That's the typical American disease - assuming the rest of the world is either scary or just like Mainstreet USA.
Serendipitously hit the streets 2 days after my previous post. Goes to show that those who wish to point out anothers failings have dirty washing of their own.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 - 11:01
AFP News Briefs List

Shell pays Nigeria rights victims $15.5 mln by Sebastian Smith

Royal Dutch Shell agreed Monday to a 15.5 million dollar payout to settle a lawsuit alleging complicity in murder, torture and other abuses by Nigeria's former military government.

"Today, plaintiffs and defendants reached a settlement in the human rights cases brought against Royal Dutch Petroleum Company," lawyers for the plaintiffs said.

"We want to express our satisfaction that these cases have provided the plaintiffs with substantial compensation for their claims."

The settlement brought to an end a more than decade-long battle by relatives of Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and others executed in 1995 in what plaintiffs said was a campaign of repression backed by Shell.

Saro-Wiwa led a non-violent protest against environmental destruction and abuses against the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta. He was hanged along with other activists after trial in a military court.

Human rights lawyers hailed the agreement in New York as a precedent for holding Shell and other oil giants responsible for activities in countries with repressive governments.

Shell denies all accusations, but the settlement will spare the oil giant from the potential embarrassment of having to defend itself in court.

"Shell has always maintained the allegations were false," Malcolm Brinded, executive director for exploration and production, said in a statement.

"This gesture also acknowledges that, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place, the plaintiffs and others have suffered."

Part of the money will go to the plaintiffs, part to a trust to benefit the Ogoni, and some to pay the costs of litigation.

Shell highlighted what it called a "humanitarian gesture" to help the Ogoni.

"While we were prepared to go to court to clear our name, we believe the right way forward is to focus on the future for Ogoni people," Brinded said. "We believe this settlement will assist the process of reconciliation and peace in Ogoni land, which is our primary concern."*

The Nigerian plaintiffs, represented by US human rights lawyers, brought the suit under the little used Alien Tort Claims Act, a 1789 US law occasionally dusted off for use against multinational corporations' activities in other countries.

The case -- seen as a landmark in the human rights legal field -- had been due to go to trial May 27 but was repeatedly delayed in the run-up to Monday's announcement of a settlement.

Marco Simons, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, described the agreement as a "very significant milestone."

While the sum of 15.5 million dollars was dwarfed by Shell's budget, it was high enough to make companies dealing with violent governments take notice.

"Shell (will now) think that every time that somebody is injured by soldiers on one of their projects where they are providing support and assistance and encouragement, that each one of those incidents is a million dollar incident," Simons told AFP.

"For Shell globally that may not be significant, but if you are talking about the operating cost for that project that is a substantial sum."

In their joint statement lawyers for the plaintiffs said the settlement was a rare and important success in the field of international human rights.

"We hope that this settlement provides another building block in the efforts to forge a legal system that holds violators accountable wherever they may be and prevents future violations," they said.

The settlement is not the end of Shell's legal troubles. Separate challenges are being mounted in New York by an Ogoni and by environmental activists in The Netherlands.

"Shell will be dragged from the boardroom to the courthouse, time and again, until the company addresses the injustices at the root of the Niger Delta crisis and put an end to its environmental devastation," said Elizabeth Bast, International Program Director for Friends of the Earth US.

Han Shan, at Oil Change International, said: "This case should be a wake up call to multinational corporations that they will be held accountable for violations of international law, no matter where they occur."

* Management speak translation - We are as guilty as sin but prefer not to have what we grow under our rock exposed to either daylight or microscopic examination.

[spinwing]

Mmmm....

Ooooh Brian ..... you trying to hijack the thread??

All the above perhaps is more fitting on the "west africa' thread eh!


;)

[Brian Abraham]

Nooooooooo. Merely showing Shell Management that he may need a little insight into his own companies activities before slinging arrows SAS's, and his countries, way.