Great post ALAEA Fed Sec :D

Draws a very clear picture of what's going on and what's wrong whit it :ugh:

Things have to be displayed that way to masses.

And so the holes in the cheese become even closer aligned !
Since Dixon and Joyce started their cost cutting exercise commencing 7 years ago, this is what we have today.
Don't worry, the final chapter is yet to be written. They will lose a complete hull. Tick tock...........

Well beatup in the words of the South African character in Lethal Weapon:

"So who's the d!ckhead now?"

You attacked a bloke who seems pretty transparent to me, who just happens to post regularly here.

Don't see too many of the management types you are defending posting on here with their side of the story? Maybe you can relay for them?

Well put Steve.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Geez I forget about a lot of that Fed Sec and its absolutely,undeniably spot on!
I challenge any QF Manager to deny it. You can't hide the truth!
Unfortunately QF managers are so short lived they don't know what there predecessor has done.

79 hold items are you kidding? When QF for reasons unknown, took pity on me and made me a the oldest shark watcher (S/O) in history, (after 30 years of command, due to 89 but we won't go there) I often got the job from the FE who had more important things to do (like reading playboy) to write out the tech logs. Normally say from HNL to SYD to would be lucky to write 2 pages, normally relating to seat 22a entertainment u/s, drain blocked in galley with coffee beans (every time) airconditioning pac u/s Rat seen in galley, rat seen leaving galley, and every time, reverse thrust stuck in reverse thrust. Oh dear, what innocent times, 79 hold items would have put engineering into a state of shock, never mind one trans qual. How times have changed!

Seen this in another organisation that has been around for awhile too.
They used to be able to pull aircraft and engines apart and put them back together and train there own newbies by showing them how and teaching them.
Then the major shareholder wanted to save some money and outsourced much of the maintenance. Along with the corporate knowledge.
They out sourced the maintenance to the cheapest bidders and companies under their own financial pressures.
That organisation has had fatal accidents and VERY near incidents were maintenance has been a factor.
When a company gives away its corporate knowledge it increases its risk.
As they say, if you think safety is expensive try having an accident.

At least Joyce unlike Dixon has allowed the QF/JQ A330 work to all be done in Australia for the first time.

Hopefully a step in the right direction....

Great post #17, ALAEA Gen Sec

We're having issues of our own here in the UK. I find it sad that a reputable airline such as Qantas treats it's LAMEs with such contempt. Our own NAA, the UKCAA, in league with the failure that is EASA is also following a similar 'stand back & observe' style of regulatory oversight. I feel we have a few upcoming events of our own to mirror yours unfortunately.

Good luck to all those that demand and deserve a return to high standards

BAe

FAA/EASA Avionics LAE
UK ALAE(1981) member

The Alan Joyce Engineering Solution
 

ALAEA Fedsec,

You are playing politics, and playing it reasonably well.

“Can you elaborate on anything I said that was not the truth?”

Like most politicians, your message is not in what you say but what you imply.

Regarding MRO’s:

“Is only a matter of time before an aircraft serviced in an overseas facility finds itself in the side of a mountain”

Regarding the incorrectly mounted engines:

“When you don’t have your engines mounted correctly that is a likely outcome” (El Al in AMS which was NOT the result of engineering oversight as you implied)

Regarding the 767 flap jam:

“…..certainly had more dire consequences to the Garuda aircraft when most of the …..lost their life” This is NOT the reason for the Garuda accident and you know it my friend.

You sure are gaining industrial mileage from unrelated mishaps.

I'd like to see the questions and answers in context rather than just the topic and then something said in the course of a conversation. Do you have any links there?

Lets get down to tin tacks.

How long has Rolls Royce known about the problem with the IP bearing/coupling arrangement?

My guess (and it is a guess) is at least Six months, AD's usually don't just happen overnight.

Before they issued that AD, they will have seen this condition on one engine, then probably pulled and inspected others with higher times if possible, and found the condition again, put Two and Two together and presto!

Now we come to Qantas.....

Does Qantas have an RR trent 900 specialist in house? Does he watch over every single engine, graphing the vibrations, graphing the SOAP, T's and P's? Poring over every single communication with every other airline running the same engine? Asking RR hard questions?

If Qantas does have this person, were they aware of the AD? Was QF planning additional inspections of its own volition?

...or was the entire question of engine safety and performance management outsourced?

These are the questions CASA should be asking; who knew what and when did they know it, and what did they do about it? What conclusions can be drawn about the safety management of QF's engines?

I'm not holding my breath.

QF is heading for third world status where the companies have no technical brains and rely on what they are told by the manufacturers.


P.S. Well said ALEA Fed. Sec. We are heading back to the technical capability we had prior to WWII - totally dependent on overseas corporations, and it will bite us in the arse again just as it did before.

I have just finished watching a movie that was given to me by a friend, it's called Whisky Romeo Zulu. The movie is based on a true story about an Airline in Argentina called LAPA Airlines. This movie was written, directed and stared in by the actual Captain, Enrique Pineyro. Captain Pineyro documented and voiced his concerns about the Airlines training and Maintenance practices to no avail. He was ostracised by the Airline, his colleagues and the equivalent of the Argentine CASA took his medical on psychological grounds.


Two months after he resigned, the Airline crashed a B737 on Take Off.

On 22 December 2000, in a 1200-page resolution, Judge Literas charged four LAPA officials and three members of the Air Force. The LAPA officials were charged with estrago culposo seguido de muerte (similar to 'catastrophic criminal negligence leading to death') and included:
Gustavo Andrés Deutsch – President.
Ronaldo Patricio Boyd – Director general.
Fabián Chionetti – Operations manager.
Nora Arzeno – Human resources manager.

Likewise, several members of the Air Force were prosecuted for dereliciton of duty in public office:
Brigadier Major Enrique Dutra (retired) – Head of the Command of Aerial Regions.
Commodore Carlos Petersen (retired) – Director of Empowerment and Promotion.
Commodore Diego Lentino (retired) – Director of the National Institute of Aeronautical and Space Medicine.

If I was AJ and any other Senior Exec at QF, and also a Senior Exec of CASA, I would be worried and take the time out to watch this movie, it is very ENLIGHTENING TO SAY THE LEAST!!!!!!!!!!!:=:=:=:=

Valid points SunfishI think there are many questions that need to be posed - formally, once the ATSB has isued the prelim.

Every Pilot and for that matter CC needs to be quite direct with the company in that the aircraft is the workplace.

As a workplace every employee in it has legislative rights to safety & amenity. There are also firm employer obligations in respect of consultation.

Any and every decision made by Qantas that affects the 'workplace' is not just under the authority of the Regulator (CASA), but also is wholly subordinate to the applicable and sometimes differing State OHS&E legislation. (interestingly classified this according to the State in which the person was employed)

Under the Act, any employer, (inc an employee who is a Manager) and the Directors can be personally liable and subject to criminal prosecution in respect of knowingly endangering an employee in the workplace.

Add to Sunfish's questions the WHO, WHEN & WHY's in relation to OQA, the Euro A.D and the decision to run the MEL out to the max allowable. With two other 380's now recieving exchange engines the answers better be more than the arrogant corporate spin and safety cliches that have been served up lately.

This incident is not "...an engine failure that's separate from the plane itself" [Joyce] - - it is in fact a very real sobering demonstration that potentially some of us may not get to go home to the wife & kids simply because someone thought they can pick up a bonus by cutting costs or covering up.

AT

I asked the question on Pprune some time ago, who held the AOC to Qantas mainline.

It was interesting to see that within a week of my statement the AOC holder had been changed to LS.

Why the change?

Actually it's all OK!

Dick Smith said all they need to do is place an advertisement in the newspaper advising how much they spend on safety and all will be good:D

Apparantly the more you pay for a ticket the safer you are, that's why dick travels 1 st class I guess.

He had his little airplane maintained in Singapore once and hey did a good job, so there are no out sourcing of maintenance issues to worry about.

Source = channel 9.

Nothing Will Change
 

Unfortunately when this blows over it will be business as usual.
Nothing will change until there is a hull loss and loss of life.
The bean counters have no doubt factored this in in their cost risk analysis.
The litigation following such an event will lead to a major revamp of the business and a few bodies incarcerated.
Aviation is littered with evidence of cost cutting leading to loss of life.
"It will never happen to us" seems to be the Qantas mantra.
Recent events indicate that it can and will

If any of the posters to this thread were running Qantas they would go broke within weeks.

Running a business REQUIRES, from time to time, aggressive cost cutting and other measures in order to stay competitive.

Qantas is still in business today - and you all still have your jobs with them - because of the actions of management.

The airline business is not what it was 20 years ago. When will you lot wake up to this reality?

It's tommorrow & the day after that employees are concerned about!

That's why there was such a large turnout of pilots to the Syney meeting in August.

There was a unanimous vote of no confidence in the J* CEO at that time.

AJ needs to act & act fast before the same sentiment emerges from mainline.