CASA move puts carriers in check
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CASA move puts carriers in check
Fri "The Australian"
CASA move puts carriers in check
By Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
June 04, 2004
MAINTENANCE systems at major airlines will be put under the spotlight by the aviation regulator from next month in a new wave of special safety checks aimed at scrutinising areas of risk.
The new checks will be performed by dedicated teams of safety inspectors and are in addition to existing six-monthly airline audits.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) expects to identify two areas of risk to airlines each year that it will scrutinise on an industry-wide basis.
About 40 large and medium-sized carriers across Australia - including Qantas, Virgin Blue and the regional airlines - will be subject to the first wave of checks into maintenance control systems.
Problems in this area have previously cropped up at major airlines, including Virgin Blue and the now defunct Ansett. This was partly why maintenance control topped a list of risks compiled by CASA's compliance arm, a spokesman said.
CASA chief executive Bruce Byron said CASA's existing airline audit and surveillance program was effective but it was now time to dig deeper.
He said inspectors would examine how airlines were performing to ensure they were all achieving optimum safety levels.
This would give CASA a good understanding of the performance of each airline - as well as an overall industry health check, Mr Byron said.
It also showed that CASA was striving to improve its own performance levels by refining an already successful auditing system.
"CASA has been subjected to criticism from various quarters over the year for inconsistency in the way it does some of its activities," Mr Bryon said.
"I felt this was a practical way to make sure that we do something that's got a definite safety basis in terms of outcome and we try to address some of the real - and possibly some of the perceived - problems of delivering it in a consistent manner."
Airlines have been told to expect the new checks and will be kept abreast of any new industry-wide problems that are uncovered.
"This provides an opportunity for us - depending on what we get out of it - to go back to industry and say, 'Here are some suggestions on how, across the board, you can do things better'," Mr Byron said.
CASA staff are still working to determine the issues to be investigated at airlines, but the authority hopes to introduce a similar process for general aviation.
"I have asked the general aviation sector to look at this approach and over the next few months come up with a suggested way we can apply a risk-based approach," Mr Byron said. "The only tricky thing here is that general aviation is a little bit different in that there might be topics that are considered risks in one part of the country that aren't likely in other parts of the country."
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CASA move puts carriers in check
By Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
June 04, 2004
MAINTENANCE systems at major airlines will be put under the spotlight by the aviation regulator from next month in a new wave of special safety checks aimed at scrutinising areas of risk.
The new checks will be performed by dedicated teams of safety inspectors and are in addition to existing six-monthly airline audits.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) expects to identify two areas of risk to airlines each year that it will scrutinise on an industry-wide basis.
About 40 large and medium-sized carriers across Australia - including Qantas, Virgin Blue and the regional airlines - will be subject to the first wave of checks into maintenance control systems.
Problems in this area have previously cropped up at major airlines, including Virgin Blue and the now defunct Ansett. This was partly why maintenance control topped a list of risks compiled by CASA's compliance arm, a spokesman said.
CASA chief executive Bruce Byron said CASA's existing airline audit and surveillance program was effective but it was now time to dig deeper.
He said inspectors would examine how airlines were performing to ensure they were all achieving optimum safety levels.
This would give CASA a good understanding of the performance of each airline - as well as an overall industry health check, Mr Byron said.
It also showed that CASA was striving to improve its own performance levels by refining an already successful auditing system.
"CASA has been subjected to criticism from various quarters over the year for inconsistency in the way it does some of its activities," Mr Bryon said.
"I felt this was a practical way to make sure that we do something that's got a definite safety basis in terms of outcome and we try to address some of the real - and possibly some of the perceived - problems of delivering it in a consistent manner."
Airlines have been told to expect the new checks and will be kept abreast of any new industry-wide problems that are uncovered.
"This provides an opportunity for us - depending on what we get out of it - to go back to industry and say, 'Here are some suggestions on how, across the board, you can do things better'," Mr Byron said.
CASA staff are still working to determine the issues to be investigated at airlines, but the authority hopes to introduce a similar process for general aviation.
"I have asked the general aviation sector to look at this approach and over the next few months come up with a suggested way we can apply a risk-based approach," Mr Byron said. "The only tricky thing here is that general aviation is a little bit different in that there might be topics that are considered risks in one part of the country that aren't likely in other parts of the country."
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Isnt this the required job of CASA in the first place?????
What have they been doing all these years?
Do they redeploy woefully underutilised inspectors or go on a mass recruitment spree as per usual??
What was that acronym for CASA again.....
What have they been doing all these years?
Do they redeploy woefully underutilised inspectors or go on a mass recruitment spree as per usual??
What was that acronym for CASA again.....
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"This would give CASA a good understanding of the performance of each airline - as well as an overall industry health check, Mr Byron said."
An open question to Bruce:
What sort of understanding does CASA currently have of the performance of each airline if it takes these checks to obtain a "good understanding" [my emphasis]?
At best, a poor choice of words. At worst . . . it raises a significant number of questions that CASA must answer.
An open question to Bruce:
What sort of understanding does CASA currently have of the performance of each airline if it takes these checks to obtain a "good understanding" [my emphasis]?
At best, a poor choice of words. At worst . . . it raises a significant number of questions that CASA must answer.
Last edited by Uncle Festa; 5th Jun 2004 at 09:06.
The maintenance control situation in Ansett that led to the Ansett groundings shocked the Australian airline industry and public alike.
The latest confessions of Virgin on their loss of control of their maintenance control system has shown that the problem has not gone away, and were not confined to only Ansett.
Bruce Byron's initiative as the chief regulator to carry out an audit to try and identify and scope the depth of any emdemic problems would seem to be a good first step in resolving whatever problems that may exist.
The latest confessions of Virgin on their loss of control of their maintenance control system has shown that the problem has not gone away, and were not confined to only Ansett.
Bruce Byron's initiative as the chief regulator to carry out an audit to try and identify and scope the depth of any emdemic problems would seem to be a good first step in resolving whatever problems that may exist.
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Folks,
First things first: CASA's job is not to manage each operator's business - its job is to ensure that each operator properly manages their own business!
The biggest problem we face is the failure of operators to hold up their end of the bargain. Clearly, the regulator has identified that it is guilty of misplaced trust at best and regulatory oversight failure at worst.
Hence the maintenance control campaign to scope out the size of the problem.
I would expect that one outcome will be the strengthening of the independence of the Maintenance Controller from the CAR 30 organisations and a review of the competency requirements for Certificate of Registration holders. The move to "registered operator" will not in any way change the need to understand the fundamentals of the systems for maintaining the continuing airworthiness of our aircraft. That system relies on a separation of the roles of the operator, the maintainer and the guardian of the continuing airworthiness AKA the C of R holder.
It will be interesting to see if CASA gets its policy and standardisation ducks all in a row before the campaign commences in earnest.
Stay Alive,
First things first: CASA's job is not to manage each operator's business - its job is to ensure that each operator properly manages their own business!
The biggest problem we face is the failure of operators to hold up their end of the bargain. Clearly, the regulator has identified that it is guilty of misplaced trust at best and regulatory oversight failure at worst.
Hence the maintenance control campaign to scope out the size of the problem.
I would expect that one outcome will be the strengthening of the independence of the Maintenance Controller from the CAR 30 organisations and a review of the competency requirements for Certificate of Registration holders. The move to "registered operator" will not in any way change the need to understand the fundamentals of the systems for maintaining the continuing airworthiness of our aircraft. That system relies on a separation of the roles of the operator, the maintainer and the guardian of the continuing airworthiness AKA the C of R holder.
It will be interesting to see if CASA gets its policy and standardisation ducks all in a row before the campaign commences in earnest.
Stay Alive,
