gcafinal
11th Oct 2011, 06:47
Today, candidates scheduled to sit the CASA aircrew examinations administered under ASL, arrived to find that the examinations had been cancelled nationally because the internet server at CASA had failed. Many candidates travelled many hours by road across most States to sit this examination. One candidate drove 10 hours by road because this was the nearest centre to him. One other candidate allegedly flew in from overseas for the day just to sit examination. The CASA contractors ASL, were very professional about things given the massive failure they were forced to encounter through no fault of their own. However many candidates are in day jobs and had to take a days unpaid leave. The level of the failure encountered is unacceptable. It is insufficient to weakly state that computers fail from time to time and that candidates have to put up with it, especially since the examinations have to be completed within a mandated timeframe. This alone puts many candidates at a high disadvantage for many reasons. CASA delivers aviation compliance, based on aviation systems safety management ideals and other risk modelling processes so why isn't a back up available to allow for this risk contingency ? A manual examination recovery would be easy to administer, (ie issue hard copy papers), the only disadvantage being, that the exam results would not be available until they had been marked. Given that expensive fees have been taken to sit the examinations at the time they are advertised, do candidates have any cost recovery options for air fares, hotel bills, other transport costs, loss of income or examination fees?