Senate Inquiry into CASA.

[Boratous]

CASA they laid 7 charges under the air nav reg,s the charges when you read them are rubbish yesderday in the melbourne court all got dismissed all 7 not a dickey bird got up,a good win

Could we get a few more details of this case? Where did you read about it and where did you see the actual charges that were laid? Why would CASA lay charges under the Air Navigation Regulations? They have nothing to do with CASA as they are the responsibility of the Department of Transport.

[Creampuff]

Actually, CASA doesn't lay charges under any legislation, regulations or otherwise. That (in the case of civil aviation law) is the DPP's job, and the decision to prosecute or not is made by the DPP in accordance with the prosecution policy of the Commonwealth (here: WebHelp)

[Boratous]

I saw the actual charges laid I suggest you speak to the person who was effected he will enlighten you even further

Bit hard to talk to the actual person if you don't say who it is. Which actual court was this matter dealt in and if you saw the charges perhaps you could provide us with some detail. I also can't work out the relevance of the self-self reporting system. Did this person self report the breaches?

[gupta]

Read post 244 again - it spells out just who was charged

[Boratous]

Acrobatic/Gupta

READ my previous post it names the school and the court be rest assured this the matter was only delt with 2 days ago within 2 weeks everbody is going to know about this case

In fact you have not provided any relevant details at all.

You say that the matter was heard in "the melbourne court ". There is no such court. There is a Magistrate’s Court, a County Court and a Supreme Court (along with lots of other courts) – which are all in Melbourne. So which court was it?

You say that you have provided the name of the individual concerned. But that is not the case. Your previous post refers to the owner of the Lilydale Flying School? There is no name provided – and when you go to the Lilydale Flying School website there are no details of the “owner”. There is a reference to Jonathan Merridew – is he the owner – the website does not say so.

You say that the charges were under the air navigation regs. But that seems improbable as CASA does not administer those regulations.

So at this stage you have not provided any relevant detail at all that would enable anyone interested to find out a bit more about this case to which you refer. And if you have the information then it’s not clear why you wouldn’t provide it in your posts given that if the matter has been to court then it is in the public domain anyway, So why all secrecy?

[Creampuff]

Very good points, Boratous

This one smells like an embellished, third-hand account of half a story.

It’s funny, really. If the headline: ‘Plane in Death Plunge!’ appears in the paper, there are howls of derision and indignation among the learned aviation community. But a number of them seem not to comprehend any irony - or, dare I suggest hypocrisy - in some of the sensationalist, ignorant pap that passes for commentary about court and tribunal matters on D&G.

[OpsNormal]

boaccomet4, be careful - the problem with identifying individuals or individual cases means that there will always be someone who reads your words who may well have a greater knowledge of what really went-on (no, I am not saying I know any more than you on the instance you've raised - in fact I have had nothing really to do with that company ever, except on an inter-company level at one stage). I have been away from the QLD scene for over 12 months and I have no problem putting two and two together and identifying the organisation you allude to.

Whilst there may well be some truth in only some of what you say I cannot agree that you can lay the blame for the whole issue at the feet of the FOI involved. You see, this industry occasionally works in mysterious ways. An overheard word said about someone in a hangar, a first hand comment by a concerned outsider and all of a sudden someone else (usually the FOI) usually has the blame for the original protaginist shooting his/her mouth off to anyone who would listen..... Do you follow me?

Personal experience has me believing some people who only ever see the worst in everything also need to learn to use a typewriter/computer, especially if they have easily identifiable aspects to their handwriting.....

Jail at leas one of them and send a message to the industry

So just who do you propose to be your sacrificial lamb?

Regards,

OpsN.

[PLovett]

Ahhhh......the airline that dare not speak its name.

Ops, I have thought for some time that deliberate breaches of regs by pilots only benefits one person, the CEO/company owner. It would be amazing how few breaches would happen if they were to stand alongside the unfortunate pilot in the dock.

[Captain Starlight]

Boaccomet4

I'd think twice about using the CASA Hotline, that too has led to a pilot being sacked after the FOI on the hotline tipped off the company concerned.

The CASA Hotline did not take much notice of pilot A and pilot B in the Lockhart tragedy.

Who is watching the watchers?

[Lodown]

FOI's tipping off operators? That's the idea of good CASA/industry cooperation and togetherness isn't it?

Let's all sing Kumbayah around the campfire.

[bushy]

And there was once a job vacancy, so the Chief pilot phoned his mate at CASA to get information from a candidates file.
The military mafia was operating.

[grip-pipe]

Catch Up

Could not agree with CreamPuff more. Anybody who thinks CASA leads the Commonwealth DPP around by the nose is living in a parralel universe. IF these goons think this is correct why don't they say so to the DPP? I am sure the DPP would be delighted to follow it up.

As for the FOI getting the pilot the sack, seems the FOI got the sack as well.

Finally there are no pilot files, Dick Smith got rid of them all.

I warping back to the real universe.

[Tee Emm]

a person that has been in the industry for over 40 years and well respected

Was that the same chappie about ten years ago who continued to use a Cessna 172 for flying training when the ASI was known by all instructors to have a 20 knot error but which was not reported in the MR because of fear of retribution. Student authorised for solo circuits was warned by grade 3 instructor to "watch" the ASI as it had "errors". Student nearly went off the strip at far end due excessive float associated with ASI error. On the other hand it may not have been the same chappie.

Moral of the story. Just because someone is highly experienced in the industry doesn't always mean they are a "well respected" ace

[Boratous]

Just came across this interesting article from the Melbourne Age about CASA and the Senate Inquiry.

On a wing and a prayer

· Richard Baker
· July 21, 2008

Are we safe up there? Damning evidence to a Senate inquiry suggests the Civil Aviation Safety Authority may be failing as a safety watchdog.

SENIOR executives from Australia's air safety regulator were disgruntled when they fronted a special Senate inquiry earlier this month. Surprised by the Federal Government's decision to call a snap inquiry into their administration of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, they made their displeasure clear.
"After we had given our evidence at the last estimates (in May), the inquiry was announced and certainly I was disappointed ... a number of these issues have been ventilated quite a lot," CASA's deputy chief Shane Carmody told the senators.
Carmody's comments highlight the friction that has developed between members of the Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee and CASA management in recent years.
Labor's Kerry O'Brien and CASA chief Bruce Byron have been particularly prickly combatants, with the Tasmanian senator pursuing the Howard-government appointee over his expensive overseas travel, his scheduling of time-off to coincide with Senate hearings and his $350,000-plus annual salary.
In addition to showing their displeasure at being the subject of an inquiry, CASA's leadership let it be known they were disappointed that the many changes they had introduced to the organisation - including reform of its approach to safety regulation and a 50% staff turnover - had not been "broadly recognised in the community".
While it may be true that most Australians are unfamiliar with CASA's reforms, the policy changes - particularly regarding safety regulation - have not been lost on pilots, engineers, former CASA staff, families of air crash victims and other industry participants.
In fact, Byron's mission to have CASA seen as a "valued partner" of the aviation industry rather than a "nanny regulator" is a topic that features prominently in many of the 50 submissions received by the inquiry.
Critics of Byron's policy argue that the move towards self-administration is worrying, particularly as airlines look to cut costs to cope with soaring oil prices and a bleak global economic outlook. Submissions from pilots, unions and former CASA officials said such times demanded a rigorous regulator.
But Byron, an experienced pilot and former airline executive, has made little secret over the past three years of his desire to introduce a "more sophisticated" approach to CASA's role as safety regulator. It is, he said last year, "something that has really been dear to my heart for some time".
Looking to the aviation regulatory regimes in the US, Canada and Europe for inspiration, Byron has pushed CASA in the direction of educator rather than enforcer. "CASA will not be knocking on your door armed with the regulations and a plan to dig around until breaches are found," he said in 2006.
The desire for a smooth relationship with industry is evident right across CASA. Even its job advertisements contain the sentence: "CASA works to be a valued partner with the aviation industry."
Byron and his management team reject criticisms that this approach has led to a cosy relationship between CASA and the aviation industry. "When at times we have to be a firm regulator, that is what we have to do," he told the inquiry.
CASA's ostensibly firm hand was on display soon after the Senate inquiry was announced late last month, with the authority ordering a safety check of air operations in northern Australia, where in one of the nation's worst air crashes 15 people were killed at Lockhart River in Queensland in 2005.
However, the initiative was not well received by some of the families of the Lockhart victims, who regarded it as a cynical attempt to appear tough as the organisation faced parliamentary scrutiny.
What the Senate inquiry has made clear is that CASA's approach to safety regulation has been the cause of considerable debate and angst within the organisation. Deputy chief executive Carmody revealed an almost 50% turnover in staff, with some choosing to move on and others going "because we no longer had a place for them".
Byron linked some of the 134 redundancies at CASA to the cultural change he and his team have tried to implement.
A victim of that change is the man who was its general counsel between 1995 and 2006, Peter Ilyk. The lawyer told senators that CASA was treading on dangerous ground by playing down its responsibility for safety regulation.
"It (CASA) was not set up to be a partner with industry. It was not set up to promote industry. It was not set up to bow to industry pressure. CASA was set up to regulate the industry and enforce the safety rules," Ilyk argued.
CASA's decision to stop publishing air operator suspensions or cancellations on its website suggests a dangerously close relationship between the regulator and industry, according to Ilyk. "Such publication would not be in the spirit of partnership," he said.
Ilyk told senators that governance failures had flourished under the new arrangements, including a reluctance to tackle the big operators such as Qantas. He said he had brought these to Byron's attention but "not long after raising my concerns, I was terminated".
"I think there was a lot of industry pressure to get rid of particular people that happened to criticise industry or took a tough stance," Ilyk said.
"Towards the end of my career, the CEO simply ignored all of my emails ... One of the ones I sent to the CEO at the time outlining my concerns about governance failures in CASA was never answered formally. We had a CEO meeting about three months later and the only response I got from the CEO was, 'Don't you ever send me a minute like that again.' At that point I knew I was on the slippery slope out."
Asked about Ilyk's claims, Byron said that to the best of his knowledge he always responded to concerns raised by senior staff, either by accepting what they said or rejecting it. He did not recall ever telling people not to send him certain material again and reminded senators that ex-CASA staff making submissions might be "disaffected".
Another former CASA employee, Joseph Tully, who was a policy manager in the general aviation group, supported Ilyk's criticisms. Tully told the inquiry that four senior CASA technical staff had been forced out of the authority since 2005 after registering concern about CASA's approach to safety regulation.
Rod Bencke, a CASA veteran of 21 years, was blunt in his assessment of the authority's standing: "It is my belief that CASA will not be an effective regulator until its operations and ethos have been comprehensively reviewed and effective correction action taken."
On what has CASA based its controversial new regulatory approach? The answer is a mix of the "partnership" models adopted by aviation regulators in the US, Europe and Canada in recent years.
Unfortunately for CASA, these regimes, which emphasise industry self-administration, have this year come in for strong criticism from law-makers and public sector watchdogs in their respective countries.
In April, James Oberstar, the chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said the US Federal Aviation Administration had shown a dangerous lack of compliance with inspection requirements, resulting in thousands flying on potentially unsafe aircraft.
Oberstar's comments came after a congressional investigation revealed a discount airline was flying 737s that had defects which should have been detected by FAA inspections.
"It reflects an attitude of complacency at the highest levels of FAA management, a pendulum swing away from vigorous enforcement of regulatory compliance towards a carrier-friendly, cozy relationship with the airlines," he said.
Two months ago, the Canadian Auditor-General Sheila Fraser criticised Transport Canada's decision to let the aviation industry conduct its own safety inspections without first assessing any of the risks involved. Fraser said the policy "could have sweeping implications for air safety in Canada".
In Australia, it is not just former CASA employees who are worried by the authority's push for better relations with industry while moving away from the traditional role of a watch-dog style regulator.
Captain Ian Woods, president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, told senators that CASA had failed to meet required standards in enforcing industry compliance with safety regulations. This failure, he said, meant CASA was "unable to act as a necessary counterweight to balance shifting economic and regulatory frameworks".
"Some people would say that it is never possible for the one organisation to balance safety regulation with commercial necessity and they should be separated," Woods said.
"A number of occurrences I have personally witnessed lead me to conclude that CASA gave due consideration to its obligations there and at times confused those obligations and was not clear and definitive enough standing up for safety regulation."
Adding weight to criticism of CASA's relationship with industry is its refusal to release its audits of the overseas facilities, mainly in Asia, that are increasingly used by Qantas and Virgin Blue to maintain their jets. This has caused the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association to accuse CASA of putting the interests of foreign-owned companies before those of the Australian public.
Though the Senate inquiry has been a bruising experience for CASA executives, they have not been without support. Qantas and Virgin Blue applauded CASA's regulatory policy.
"The shift by CASA to a risk-based approach to safety, where the focus is on safety outcomes, with the responsibility for managing day-to-day safety risks resting with industry, is supported," Qantas said.
Importantly, Byron can point out to his critics that Australia still enjoys an airline safety record the envy of the world. "I am the first to say that we, CASA, do not have an easy job, but I stand by the record of my organisation over the last few years. We do not expect to receive bouquets for the work we do, but I would like to believe that most of the industry, from time to time, and on considered and calm reflection, acknowledges that CASA delivers real safety outcomes," said Byron, who is not seeking re-appointment as CASA chief.
But critics, such as CASA's former chief lawyer Peter Ilyk, suggest Australia is more than ever in need of a strong aviation regulator, given the growing pressure on airlines to cut costs and the possible negative effect that could have on safety and maintenance standards. "The fact that there have not been any accidents and the fact that people have not died does not mean that there is no safety problem."

[clapton]

The interesting development will be to see the findings of the Senate Inquiry.

[clapton]

This is the official reponse from the Senate inquiry into the delay in publishing its report into CASA:

The committee has not yet tabled its report into the administration of
CASA. The committee has not set a new date for its tabling, but it is
still possible that the report may be tabled during this sitting
fortnight. The committee is currently finalising a number of reports and
my understanding is that the delays in tabling a number of these relate
to the committee's workload and the need for it to actively consider
each of the draft reports before it.

I will forward your concerns about the committee's inability to meet the
original tabling date to the committee.

Sounds a bit like the CASA regulatory reform program...........

[clapton]

Acrobatic

Mate you are liveing in a fools paradise no one gets hit with 11 charges and knocks them all over, who are you kidding, make one stick and you are out of the industry someone in CASA puts up to the enforcement section they like little rabbits run off to the dpp and there you go, give me a break please.But when they are privately accountable they will be hideing back in their burrows.

Don't understand any of this. What are you trying to say???

[Torres]

"What are you trying to say???"

I doubt even he knows.

With Byron deciding not to renew his contract, half the Government agenda has been achieved. I suspect the other half will be a recommendation to establish a Board, to shift the Minister's butt even further from responsibility.

[Niles Crane]

"The shift by CASA to a risk-based approach to safety, where the focus is on safety outcomes, with the responsibility for managing day-to-day safety risks resting with industry, is supported," Qantas said.

When has aviation not been "Risk Based".

I love when someone with a degree brings in "Touchy Feely" garbage into to an industry that only has 2 outcomes: Safety or Death!

A few months ago we had a CASA audit and I was asked by the CASA safety guy what "Risk Analysis" training I have. I told him my Pilots Licence. He did not accept this because it was not formal "Certificate" rated "Risk Analysis training. What a joke. Lets all go back to when DS said it was OK to get the weather from the Sydney Morning Herald!.....Its Summer, I'm just going 200nm and its fine here so it must be fine 200nm away, anyway the weather page in the paper tells me so!

This is what Industry Regulating itself means!

With less experience, more sophisticated aircraft, we are all going to regulate ourselves and fly the same types totally differently. Good safety outcome!

3 years ago I thought CASA had some redemmable features, now they have none.

[bushy]

We already have a situation where different operators have different SOP's for operating the same type of aeroplane.
We also have lots of dispensations, exceptions etc which allow specific operators to ignore certain rules.