MinRes Air

[BuzzBox]

Originally Posted by Hollywood1

Heard the "Snowbird" callsign in WA last week. Have they started trial flights to the mine sites using SkyTraders' A319?

Skytraders have been operating flights for Min Res since January, flying weekly between Brisbane and a couple of the Min Res mine sites.

MINRES LAUNCHES FIRST DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM BRISBANE

[Max Tow]

Originally Posted by Fred Gassit

“We’re going to be able to land our people on site at 5:30 in the morning, and they do a shift change at six. And the night shift hops on the plane and goes home.“
Sounds like a lot of early starts

Yes, and for the mine workers too. Assuming up at 2 a.m. to get the flight then straight on to a (?) hour shift at 6 a.m.

[krismiler]

I’ve done FIFO before and mining companies prioritise safety and reliability before cost. We had regular audits on our operations to make sure things were up to scratch. The safety culture and system is very strong.

No mining company is going to risk an accident by running a cowboy style outfit. They are too attractive a target for the lawyers if anything goes wrong. Multi million dollar lawsuits from families of their workers killed or injured in an accident aren’t something they want.

[KRviator]

Originally Posted by krismiler

I’ve done FIFO before and mining companies prioritise safety and reliability before cost. We had regular audits on our operations to make sure things were up to scratch. The safety culture and system is very strong.

No mining company is going to risk an accident by running a cowboy style outfit. They are too attractive a target for the lawyers if anything goes wrong. Multi million dollar lawsuits from families of their workers killed or injured in an accident aren’t something they want.

Done FIFO "flights" - or done FIFO actually working for a mining company? In my 14 years at one of the majors "safety" is a distant second after "production". You hold up a train because you want to comply with the rulebook by doing X, but a Supervisor tells you not to do X even though it's in writing, and you'll be immediately suspended and in front of HR by the end of the week for "Disobeying a Supervisors directive". Been there, done that...

Look at BHP and their runaway - a single missed step in a single procedure resulted in the biggest derailment in history in terms of tonnage, speed & size. Why didn't BHP use "dump devices" like others up there did to vent the BP in the event the train moved while the driver was out of the cab? Why didn't BHP have the airbrake exhaust BP air to atmosphere to apply a pneumatic brake application, instead of just ECP in the event the ECP application failed to stop the train - like others up there do? Why didn't BHP configure their on-board systems to automatically exhaust BP air to atmosphere before the ECP brake transitioned to CUTOUT after 60 minutes - again, like others up there did?

Cost. Nothing more, nothing less.

They relied on their people remembering procedure 100%, 100% of the time, because it is always cheaper and easier to 'proceduralise' safety vs developing engineering controls. And look where that got them...

[krismiler]

If an A319 with 100+ workers on board goes into the side of a hill, there might be an effect on production whilst new personnel are recruited and trained. Cost is a significant factor in any aviation incident, the old saying goes 'If you think safety is expensive, try having an accident." After the insurance payout, there are still numerous other areas such as disruption to operations and brand reputation which aren't covered.