ATSB protracted investigation process. Flight safety lessons lost in time.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Australia
Posts: 4,099
ATSB protracted investigation process. Flight safety lessons lost in time.
The Weekend Australian newspaper January 2-3, 2021, under the Business Section, published a story called “Dream to fly leaves student with $77k debt and no licence.” It concerns the demise of Soar Aviation at Moorabbin. The journalist David Ross has put together an excellent article.
The student pilot interviewed for the story related his concern about safety and teaching standard at Soar after witnessing a dangerous crash that almost claimed the life of a fellow student in 2019.
According to the article, a Soar student pilot was left trapped after being involved in a serious crash at Moorabbin Airport on December 12, 2019 that saw his plane flip and crash. A Finding into the crash is yet to be handed down by the ATSB.
I have often wondered why an accident of this sort involving one person and a light sports aircraft, has taken over one year to investigate with still no result. If anyone in ATSB reads PPRuNe, and I am sure they do, perhaps they could explain why a seemingly simple straight forward accident such as the Soar accident in December 2019, can take such an inordinate length of time to produce a Finding.
Despite the availability of ever increasing sophistication of technical resources to make the investigation process more efficient and faster, delays of this nature are nothing new for ATSB; Why is this so? Any lessons from this accident become lost in time.
The student pilot interviewed for the story related his concern about safety and teaching standard at Soar after witnessing a dangerous crash that almost claimed the life of a fellow student in 2019.
According to the article, a Soar student pilot was left trapped after being involved in a serious crash at Moorabbin Airport on December 12, 2019 that saw his plane flip and crash. A Finding into the crash is yet to be handed down by the ATSB.
I have often wondered why an accident of this sort involving one person and a light sports aircraft, has taken over one year to investigate with still no result. If anyone in ATSB reads PPRuNe, and I am sure they do, perhaps they could explain why a seemingly simple straight forward accident such as the Soar accident in December 2019, can take such an inordinate length of time to produce a Finding.
Despite the availability of ever increasing sophistication of technical resources to make the investigation process more efficient and faster, delays of this nature are nothing new for ATSB; Why is this so? Any lessons from this accident become lost in time.
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: 500 miles from Chaikhosi, Yogistan
Posts: 3,812
Timely release won’t help Centy. Many ATSB reports these days are fundamentally vacuous and miss any concrete safety lessons - as the recent stall at low level in the circuit report showed.
Aircraft down at Braidwood, NSW
Aircraft down at Braidwood, NSW
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Everywhere
Posts: 475
Unfortunately the ATSB has over the last 25 -30 years developed a real skill in writing reports that avoid any criticism of CAsA, CAsA employees or any of the regulatory suite that CAsA is supposed to administer.
The production of useful, timely reports has also gone by the wayside.
CC
The production of useful, timely reports has also gone by the wayside.
CC
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 754
Unfortunately the ATSB has over the last 25 -30 years developed a real skill in writing reports that avoid any criticism of CAsA, CAsA employees or any of the regulatory suite that CAsA is supposed to administer.
The production of useful, timely reports has also gone by the wayside.
CC
The production of useful, timely reports has also gone by the wayside.
CC

Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Oz
Posts: 788
They lost me with Air Asia X. I mean I’ve lost count but over a dozen, eye raising incidents, and they continued to fly in our airspace without sanctions. I have never seen such disregard (well complete non compliance) for basic Airbus operating procedures in my career. I had to re read some of those reports multiple times to make sure I wasn’t in some delusional state of mind, yes what I was reading was correct.
My whinging to both bodies around why I wanted them out of our airspace, got one answer which was it was up to the responsible minister to take action. Albanese didn’t want to upset our foreign neighbours, putting trade deals ahead of safety. It’s just some bottom feeding low cost , who gives a ****. No loss!
My whinging to both bodies around why I wanted them out of our airspace, got one answer which was it was up to the responsible minister to take action. Albanese didn’t want to upset our foreign neighbours, putting trade deals ahead of safety. It’s just some bottom feeding low cost , who gives a ****. No loss!