Senate Inquiry, Hearing Program 4th Nov 2011

[Sarcs]

"flying fiend's" boys'n'gals

UITA couple of good copies there and I notice you've finally got the scale about right.

In your post http://www.pprune.org/7701732-post1099.html did you happen to notice the subject line which reads "FW: Response to Roger".

Err..perhaps flying fiends designated legal officer for the day on the FOI desk has missed the subject line while dutifully redacting the FRMS Special Audit report.

Note on FOI or Dunce's Desk: That's the desk that everyone calls the 'naughty corner' and is jammed up near where the effluent and scraps come down from the golden trough from above and sits under a shroud of cobwebs.

On those emails the one on page 42 of the PDF was very interesting, here is a quote from part of it…

“One of the key areas that we believe is missing from the action plan is a list to cover the quality assurance (QA) processes i.e. there is a lot of activity within the list but how will they determine and assure themselves and CASA the actions have been effective. For example safety culture and reporting remain an issue with the WW operators and this process takes time (minimum 6 months) to influence and determine the change has been effective.”

Q/ So did these helpful suggestions get acted on? Or, like the rest of the report appears to have been; did it get ‘shelf wared’? Sure like to take a look at that FF ‘shelf ware’ warehouse!

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

In light of some of the comments and contact of the report looking at the effectiveness of the centralized service centre?

There was concern from old timers that the process could be a tick box process.

I wonder how many other audit reports and RCA's have been mislaid?

Anybody have an sti (safety trend indicator) audit carried out over the phone?

[my oleo is extended]

Box ticking and audit flicking

Halfmanhalfpotplant, the CASA love those ticked boxes.
As for over the phone audits I am not sure, but the Accident Liasion Manager who is the 'not so robust' CASA/ATSB conduit in the middle of this gritty sandwich used to accept 'telephone calls to an operator' as Operational Surveillance when he was the Brisbane field office manager! Again, it ticks the boxes and meets KPI's, but just a smoke screen. I imagine it is all sitting in TRIM if one was to search for it

I have also been told for example that when Macair fell over the government panicked about not being able to service FNQ routes, so they arranged for another operator to pick up a bunch of those routes, albeit with a completely different aircraft type. No audit was done first, no full and thorough risk assessments undertaken, just a 'desktop exercise' and hey presto - the new operator had all the ports added to their AOC, which was around 10 ports I am told, and done very quickly. No risk in that is there?

Aargh yes I hear the sound of a shredder I believe!!
Poor Flyingfiend, no wonder he doesn't have time to post of late. All these spotfires erupting and not enough hoses! Maybe CASA will have to use all the trough water as well??

'Unsafe emails for all'

[GADRIVR]

Just a thought.
Perhaps I've missed something or has "Flyingfiend" disappeared off the forums completely?!
Wonder why? Perhaps I'm not searching correctly?!
On a completely different note....... how does one go about a defamation lawsuit these days?Ah well.... off to bed methinks!

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Oleo,

Ff maybe monitoring for
Incoming - Friday afternoon faxes.

[Kharon]

"FW: Response to Roger".

Problem: Roger Fitzpatrick or Patrick Fitzroger. Which Woger wuz it?.

The Woger of "The Report" fame, is a lion of reform, robustly using cohorts of fearless FOI to drill down below the conflicted, scratched surfaces. Sorting the incompetent from the dopey and reflecting "CASA concern". Obviously seriously qualified as "He, who must not be named" singled him out from all of his other 'experts' to draft a secret "How to fix it" report.

The Woger of "audit management fame" has previously, under oath claimed to be no more than a simple paper shuffler at the mercy of technically qualified inspectors; some of whom told fairy stories, which Woger believed. It was unfortunate that whatever a qualified field inspector told him, he a simple paperwork shuffler, was obliged to believe, no matter how dubious or worthless the information was. "Not qualified M' lud".

Now it can't be the same chappie, that would imply complicity, or lying on oath or a seriously split personality. No!, and then, the difficulty identifying the wight "Woger" is further compounded by the inappropriate use of large words, complicated syntax and long sentences which appear to finish where they start, without actually saying anything. The available candidates for "Woger" all seem to fancy themselves with a pen.

Aye, 'tis all passing strange; a puzzle. Will the weel Woger wiggle out from the wood work? Tonight, the Bar Room Barristers have convened a special information swap night, with a guest speaker; perhaps they can determine just who's bweifs Woger was pulling.

Insert - standard "Kelpie" ending.

[my oleo is extended]

GADRIVR, Flyingfiend is a little to busy for prune at the moment. Lots of work to do, trips to Montreal, paperwork to shuffle, pot plants to water, etc etc.
He may come back if asked nicely, but unlikely.

[Sarcs]

Excerpts from the 'Shelfware Chronicles'

Chapter One: Jack Rabbit his cohort Wodger Wabbit and the other wily wabbits!

Love it "K"! Oh Mr Ferryman...please...please tell us a fairytale??

[my oleo is extended]

Wanted - A ringmaster

Step right up friends the circus is in town. That's right, and completely true, Cavalia has set up in the DFO carpark, Brisbane airport, across the road from that other great circus tent - Fort Fumble!
Bring the family and bring the Inspectorate. There will be a host of activities including:

A kids petting zoo - Pat a FF executive in his natural environment. This one is not for the faint hearted.

A spinning cage - Watch as audit reports, documents and 'questions on notice' are spun around mercilessly. Spin spin spin, where it stops only Albo knows. The finale of this act is always a heart stopper.

Apple bobbing - Grab the top prize and you could be off on an all expenses paid 'working study' to Montreal with business class tickets and 5 star chamber accommodation.

The Lions Cage - Watch as a Senator walks into the cage full of hungry FF spin doctors and tries to tame the circling ferocious angry beasts! There will be hoops to jump through, whips and jackboots.

Escape artists - Watch as a group of mid tier managers attempt to free themselves from the chains of the Band D Salary and escape to the safety of an awaiting corporate executive package.

Flyingfiends flying trapeze act - You will be amazed at this robust performance. Watch as these high flyers move from one end of the tent to another at dizzying speed and almost out of sight. There will be no safety net as these boys are fully confident in their ability to defy the laws of aviation nature. (Keep an eye out for the spandex costumes!).

Laughing clowns - There will be bald headed laughing clowns aplenty. Grab an audit report and pop it in the clowns mouth and win a prize!

AOC fortune teller - Swing by the fortune tellers desk and seek a prediction on the future or your AOC, HOFO application or gaze into the crystal ball to see what your possible future is pertaining to Show Causes.

Nashing of teeth - Enjoy working with the circus folks, bearded ladies, carnies and Inspectors as you grab a shovel, dig a hole , pot a plant, cover it in circus floor pony poo and water it from a chamber pot. You will be encouraging a greener environment while making robust use of free land space. For entertainment value this one gets a big tick in the box..

So friends come to Brisbane airport, enjoy the double act of Cirque de Cavalia and Cirque de CASA. Tickets selling fast.

P.S For those who cannot afford the show there will be free evening viewing of the event from Level 3, East Wing, FF Brisbane.

[Frank Arouet]

It kicks off with a reproduction of the 1936 Berlin Olympics where following the march past, 40,000 pigeons will be released and while circling to get their bearings, a Battery of 105mm Howitzers from The School of Artillery fire a salute which causes 40,000 simultaneous pigeon ****s to descend on the audience.

It will be worth it if only to listen to the Massed Bands follow on with The 1812 Overture culminating in..........., you guessed it 40,000 more pigeon ****s.

This will be salvaged for pot plant fertiliser.

I trust Brisbane ATC have been informed?

[Up-into-the-air]

casa and the "magnificent" flying circus

Pure gold!!! MOIE

Nashing of teeth

Enjoy working with the circus folks, bearded ladies, carnies and Inspectors as you grab a shovel, dig a hole , pot a plant, cover it in circus floor pony poo and water it from a chamber pot.

You will be encouraging a greener environment while making robust use of free land space.

For entertainment value this one gets a big tick in the box..

Go, Go Go

Senators Fawcett and Xenophon for the dual role circusmaster

[Sarcs]

Excerpts from the 'Shelf Ware' Chronicles cont:

Jack Wabbit's spin and obfuscation is laughable :

Senator FAWCETT: Going to that exact point, if you go to 4.1 of the Chambers report, it states that it is likely that many of the deficiencies identified after the accident would have been detectable through interviews with line pilots and through the conduct of operational surveillance of line crews in addition to the surveillance, the management checks.

It strikes me that the Chambers report is quite specific, and that is only one example. There are a number of other areas where it is fairly clear that there were deficiencies in the oversight that had they been addressed through effective audit the accident may well have been prevented. The point though, Mr McCormick, is not so much to say that the surveillance was deficient therefore the world is about to end.

Commissioning the Chambers report was commendable upon your taking control of the organisation. The point is, for the public to have confidence that there is transparency and due process, where there is a report in existence, a formal report conducted by a senior manager, it would be the expectation of the public—and indeed, as Senator Xenophon has pointed out, it is clearly highlighted in the MOU—that the information pertinent to an investigation by ATSB would be made available.

With the concept of a systems approach, whereby not only the operator and the piloting command but also the regulator are key parts of the safety system, where there is written evidence in the possession of one department prior to the publication—in fact, prior to even the review of the draft report coming out—it seems inappropriate to the committee that the spirit and letter of the MOU was not implemented to make that information available.

Mr McCormick: As I said, the CASA Chambers report was a report that I started. It did not even require to be done. It was not something that was in our normal procedures. Following the MOU—

Senator FAWCETT: We appreciate the fact that you started it. Our concern is the fact that, having initiated the report and having it in your possession, the report was not then made available—as required by the MOU, in writing let alone in spirit—to assist the ATSB with their subsequent investigation.

Mr McCormick: It is a balancing act tiered between what is required to be provided to the ATSB and what is an internal CASA document. I took the view that that did not, in any way—the Chambers report—should not be influencing ATSB in their deliberations. We were very specific in not allowing our report, or any of our information, to be available to the ATSB where we had reached conclusions in a parallel investigation. In actual fact, we did not provide our report, or the accident report and our special audit reports, until we received section 32 demands from the ATSB, which we did receive on 25 March 2011 and 3 August 2012 respectively. I am very aware that we do not want a contagion effect on the ATSB.

We conducted this in the best possible way we could. We did it with the most probity and the best goodwill that we could muster at the time. In retrospect, should the ATSB have an internal CASA document? That is something that I will take away and consider again. I do not think we are in violation of the MOU in that we provided the information as we were required, and we were scrupulous in avoiding telling the ATSB our conclusions or where our investigation was going—a parallel investigation but for different reasons.

As I think Mr Dolan said before, he did not want to be involved in a CASA inquiry, nor was he inquiring into possible regulatory breaches or effects that rightly fall under our jurisdiction. So in a lot of ways, to release that report would have put, I would think, the ATSB in a different position. That is a question you could ask Mr Dolan. From my point of view, if I put myself in Mr Dolan's shoes, that would have given me a great deal of difficulty from the point of view of establishing my line of inquiry and my line of decision.

Senator FAWCETT: We will come later to the issues of collaboration—I will use that word as opposed to 'cooperation'—between the ATSB and CASA.

But there is evidence and there are documents, which we will discuss, that indicate there was relatively frequent and open discussion about the content of reports and alignment between the two organisations, and yet a report that (a) would obviously embarrass CASA was not made available, despite other because they say 'there is a lack of evidence that this is a serious safety concern'—and they take the fact that there have been audits done of the FRMS system used by the company. In the audit that CASA put together, it said:
… it is considered that the oversight by CASA has been inadequate as there is evidence to support that many of the problems identified by CASA during the surveillance audit of March 08 were never appropriately actioned.

There is a lack of any clear evidence to support corrective actions have been implemented, confirmed by CASA or that there were effective. If this process is indicative of broader practices of CASA, it is considered that CASA is exposed to unnecessary risk, particularly if required to provide evidence to support how it approved and operated a system, in this case their FRMS …

Given that the ATSB chose to ignore the whole issue of fatigue and how that might have affected the errors that were made by the pilot, because of a lack of evidence, and CASA had a formal report within their system dealing with the issue of fatigue and chose not to disclose that to the ATSB as required by the MOU, I think you would have to agree Mr McCormick that that would seem a little unusual to the reasonable man on the street.

Mr McCormick: The issue of FRMS, or the issue of fatigue, at the time was in its infancy, shall we say—even today, the FRMS rules, where they lie and how we are going forward is a matter we can discuss at some length; we are in a regulatory development process at the moment for fatigue risk management. Put in one score forward from a FADE system, which I believe Pel-Air were using, and which is used by many others around the world, gives an answer. Using some other esoteric system, or some other mathematically based system, may give you another answer.

Mathematically based systems have not been proven to be accurate in any way, shape or form. I think the important thing is, on page 21 of the Pel-Air Aviation Safety Audit Report from CASA, where we interviewed Pel-Air pilots, under the 'Policy and application of fatigue practices', it says:
All crew interviewed stated that they felt that would be no issues in stating that they were fatigued and pulling out of duty, but also felt that they had limited opportunities to fly and had to take these opportunities when they arose.

Err good try but I'm afraid I don't think there'll be many that will swallow that codswallop!

And you guessed it Hansard is out....

[Kharon]

Huston – we have a small problem.

Don't ya just love it when the information comes straight from the "horses mouth" (play nice). This makes things very, very interesting. Woger, the wily white wabbit, wevealed.

Hansard – page 6 – Friday, 15 February 2013.

Mr McCormick: All I can say about that is go back to what I said earlier on the standard we were applying in the Chambers report. I wanted the full information, in other words, to put us to a gold standard. The Chambers report adequately reflects what Mr Chambers found when he carried out that investigation.

Mr McCormick: As I said, the points raised in the Chambers report—and I will check it on notice—are covered in our special audit report and in the accident report itself. Mr Chambers has elaborated on that,

My bold.\
Tempus fugit, but it will keep.

[my oleo is extended]

Esoteric system? Oh Mr Skull.
Either somebody with a PHD in shrubbery and tautology has been coaching him or he was describing some kind of high flying trapeze act you would see at Albo's circus??
Step right up step right up the Circus is in town!

[Frank Arouet]

Mr Skull's ridiculous responses and reactions are classic..and his anger knows no bounds

Last seen doing a rabid impersonation of a whirling Dervish. (that's a wabbit with large ears and a brain less than proportional to the head under the influence of Coriolus effect and crystal meth).

By midnight he may well disappear up his own fundamental orifice such being the laws of centrifugal effort.

But be cognizant that this is only an internal merorandum of understanding of the laws, of whatever laws, is being understood, at this time in space, (given my orientation), of events.

Birds? What birds?

[my oleo is extended]

Justiceseeker, we are glad to have a person of justice joining in, welcome and shalom
But you must not feed the trolls whilst inside the circus tent viewing the show. Blackie tends to get very upset when harassed, so best not bait the beast.
Blackie, in his own way, eagerly awaits the outcome of this robust inquiry as do many of us. Perhaps he, like others, is awaiting the opportunity to jump into some vacated CASA seats once the music stops? There will be a plethora of bobbing apples to choose from

[my oleo is extended]

Blackie, enough of the insults, each pruner is welcome to their opinions.

For those who are concerned, the Senators aren't listening to 'some of us', they are listening to industry, listening to those undergoing questioning who reside in the ivory towers and they are examining the evidence.
Perhaps they do read prune, just for a few s#its and giggles, but they aren't conducting an inquiry into aviation issues based on pruners commentary.

Back to the thread......

[Sarcs]

"Every man for himself"!

On page 9 of the Hansard Senator Fawcett nails the implications of such an ugly cover-up..."Think about the reasonable man in the street, seeing a statement like that—which said: 'We won't go any further down this path, because we're happy the regulator his doing his job'—and knowing that the regulator had internal reports saying that the FRMS was not adequate. I accept your position: the UK is not necessarily an answer. But the issue for this inquiry is that you had in your possession information that would have triggered to the ATSB the fact that your oversight was not adequate. They were assuming that it was a defence that was in place and effective. You had written evidence saying that that was not the case. And by not disclosing that information, you have in fact shaped the outcome of the ATSB report. That is one of the concerns that the committee has...."

And yet it takes at least another two pages for the DAS to concede that maybe he got it wrong!!The mind boggles...

[thorn bird]

So blackie, basically your saying that Fawcett has no credentials, experience or probity to be involved in an enquiry of the CASA. Perhaps you can suggest someone who could take his place? Oh, and I assume Black Hand is a "Non de Plume?" either that or your Mum has or had an odd sense of humour.
This thread is generating incredible interest and discussion, if the Casa sexuals, as you call them, are avoiding debate then they have run out or arguments.

[Sir Cloudy]

Further to Blackie's last comment - could you please elaborate on why Sen X hasn't got a brain? Is there something that you could point to that would support that opinion? And you started on Fawcett but didn't finish - a penny for your thoughts on him?