Qantas hit with 15 safety notices
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Qantas hit with 15 safety notices
Qantas hit with 15 safety notices
By Steve Creedy
The Australian
June 05, 2009 08:24am
A DETAILED regulatory review of the way Qantas maintains individual aircraft has resulted in about 15 requests for corrective action.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority undertook the "tail audit" in the wake of a series of incidents that included a mid-air oxygen bottle explosion that blew a hole in the side of jumbo jet and a computer glitch that sent an Airbus jet on wild ride over Western Australia, reports The Australian.
Neither of those problems looks set to be the airline's fault but they prompted an embarrassing maintenance review that last year found Qantas was not meeting its own performance benchmarks and warned it needed to take action to head off potential safety problems.
Problems included the management structure of Qantas engineering as well as the accountability and control of its engineering and maintenance program.
CASA deputy chief executive operations Mick Quinn told a Senate estimates hearing that the more detailed follow-up review had involved looking at individual planes in the Boeing 737, 767 and 747 fleets.
He said the review looked at all the airworthiness directives that had been applicable to them over their lives, what had been done, how the documentation had been maintained and whether they complied with requirements.
"During this process we identified a number of areas we believed required some attention and we have issued approximately 15 – I think 13 to date on a 737 and 767 – requests for corrective action," Mr Quinn said.
"These are areas – not critical safety areas of non-compliance – where CASA believe(s) the process needs some attention to detail."
Mr Quinn said he could not comment on how many requests for corrective action had been issued on the 747 because it was incomplete.
By Steve Creedy
The Australian
June 05, 2009 08:24am
A DETAILED regulatory review of the way Qantas maintains individual aircraft has resulted in about 15 requests for corrective action.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority undertook the "tail audit" in the wake of a series of incidents that included a mid-air oxygen bottle explosion that blew a hole in the side of jumbo jet and a computer glitch that sent an Airbus jet on wild ride over Western Australia, reports The Australian.
Neither of those problems looks set to be the airline's fault but they prompted an embarrassing maintenance review that last year found Qantas was not meeting its own performance benchmarks and warned it needed to take action to head off potential safety problems.
Problems included the management structure of Qantas engineering as well as the accountability and control of its engineering and maintenance program.
CASA deputy chief executive operations Mick Quinn told a Senate estimates hearing that the more detailed follow-up review had involved looking at individual planes in the Boeing 737, 767 and 747 fleets.
He said the review looked at all the airworthiness directives that had been applicable to them over their lives, what had been done, how the documentation had been maintained and whether they complied with requirements.
"During this process we identified a number of areas we believed required some attention and we have issued approximately 15 – I think 13 to date on a 737 and 767 – requests for corrective action," Mr Quinn said.
"These are areas – not critical safety areas of non-compliance – where CASA believe(s) the process needs some attention to detail."
Mr Quinn said he could not comment on how many requests for corrective action had been issued on the 747 because it was incomplete.
Problems included the management structure of Qantas engineering....
Now to put that into context read how CASA performs in an ICAO Audit.
Analysis - The scoreboard we weren?t supposed to see | Aircraft for Sale, Plane Sales, Planes for Sale - Aviation Advertiser ? - Online Magazine
The article reports a score of 16.62% for CASA. If there were to be a regulatory body that actually regulates I suspect QF and everyone else would have a lot more safety notices!
Analysis - The scoreboard we weren?t supposed to see | Aircraft for Sale, Plane Sales, Planes for Sale - Aviation Advertiser ? - Online Magazine
The article reports a score of 16.62% for CASA. If there were to be a regulatory body that actually regulates I suspect QF and everyone else would have a lot more safety notices!
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think the "be seen to be doing something" (even if it is writing a media heads up) may have more to do with some internal rearranging of the departmental deckchairs .................................and a fear of a potential future budget grab by the about to be rebirthed ATSB.
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I would be very surprised if all of the managers within QE even knew what an AD, or SB etc was. Alot of these people have no professional qualifications within aircraft maintenance. Here lies part of the problem. There main concern appears, at times, to be cost and manpower control.
1746, It is a shame this ICAO audit report has not being picked up by the mainstream Australian media. Judging by a quick search on Google News the only other news site to run it was Flight Global. Where are the Steve Creedys when they actually should be writing articles? Probably writing about much more important industry matters instead.
And if that article is correct and we could have copied the NZ FAR based system for a lowly $1,000,000 what hope do we have? The EASA system is ludicrous. Apologies for the thread drift.
EDIT: Crikey.com.au has picked it up also but my point still remains. The public should be reading about this in every broadsheet in every state.
And if that article is correct and we could have copied the NZ FAR based system for a lowly $1,000,000 what hope do we have? The EASA system is ludicrous. Apologies for the thread drift.
EDIT: Crikey.com.au has picked it up also but my point still remains. The public should be reading about this in every broadsheet in every state.
A lot of RCAs that I have heard about are just academic PC BS.
But if there is some substance to the recent 15 that have been issued then questions could be asked about the effectiveness of the Qantas quality assurance staff. Are they qualified and capable of monitoring the engineering group or are there cuts being made in this area also?
But if there is some substance to the recent 15 that have been issued then questions could be asked about the effectiveness of the Qantas quality assurance staff. Are they qualified and capable of monitoring the engineering group or are there cuts being made in this area also?
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I'm sure some of it is trivial.
A while ago the way we sign off on jobs (ie on an A chk) changed so that you now must sign at the end of each task and also in the LAME column even though its bleeding well obvious whats been done by whom.
It sure does not make an aircraft more serviceable.
Licence numbers not legible etc.Whilst not acceptable hardly earth shattering in the greater scheme of things.
Fancy our regulator slapping anyone on the wrist."Claytons" oversight if ever there was.
Should we bring up the 11 month 2010 calendar now ?
A while ago the way we sign off on jobs (ie on an A chk) changed so that you now must sign at the end of each task and also in the LAME column even though its bleeding well obvious whats been done by whom.
It sure does not make an aircraft more serviceable.
Licence numbers not legible etc.Whilst not acceptable hardly earth shattering in the greater scheme of things.
Fancy our regulator slapping anyone on the wrist."Claytons" oversight if ever there was.
Should we bring up the 11 month 2010 calendar now ?
