---

---

---

it's a battle of law; not justice

---

---

are the only 'letters' that really mean anything here AAT?

---

---

You would have noticed that your recent medical certificate had a condition 13 which read "Limited to flights conducted inside Australian territory" instead of the earlier "Holder does not fully meet requirements of ICAO Convention Chapter 6 of Annex 1".

Recent research undertaken by CASA in the context of an extensive matter before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal revealed that foreign aviation authorities in a number of countries take a much stricter approach to the medical certification of pilots with colour vision deficiencies (CVD) than is currently the case in Australia. Given the significant difference in the treatment of pilots with CVD in other countries, CASA formed the view that medical certificates issued to persons with CVD should be limited to the conduct of operations in Australian territory. The condition 13 on the medical certificates was accordingly modified. This was on the basis that it was not considered appropriate for CASA to authorise persons to fly in the airspace of a foreign country in circumstances where the aviation authorities in that country would not countenance medical certification of the pilot concerned.

On the basis that CASA did not consult with affected pilots prior to making the change to the condition text, it has been decided that a replacement certificate reinstating the previous condition should be issued to you, and that is attached. At this point in time, CASA has no intention of changing the condition text in the immediate future.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused to you, and if you have any questions please contact 1300 4 AVMED.

Aviation Medicine

---

---

Initial issue of class 1 medicals
Pilot must undergo all three stages of tests until a pass, as per Part 67. If all tests are failed, the class 1 certificate is refused.

---

---

Initial issue of class 1 medicals
A pilot must undergo all three stages of tests until a pass is achieved before a class 1 medical certificate can be issued in accordance with regulation 67.150 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations.

---

---

Initial issue of class 1 medicals
Applicants for a Class 1 Medical Certificate must either satisfy the criteria specified in CASR 67.150, or be found by CASA not to pose a danger to safety on account of their CVD. To satisfy the requirements of CASR 67.150, the applicant must first attempt the Ishihara test. If they fail that test, they must then undertake the Farnsworth Lantern test. If the Farnsworth Lantern test is also failed a third level of test specified (for the individual case) by CASA must be undertaken. Failure of that third-level test may allow for the issue of a medical certificate if CASA finds that the applicant’s CVD does not pose a danger to safety. A Medical Certificate issued on this basis will be subject to certain limitations or restrictions.

---

---

McSherry and Civil Aviation Safety Authority [2014] AATA 119 (6 March 2014)
50. We note that in expressing that opinion, Associate Professor Navathe differed from both Associate Professor Ward and Dr McRae, each of whom regarded the risk of an incompletely incapacitating bleed causing problems for Mr McSherry whilst he was flying to be extremely small. Further, we do not consider this aspect of Associate Professor Navathe’s evidence to have been well-supported or well-reasoned and we formed the impression that this aspect of his evidence may well have been influenced by his desire to justify the decision he had made, to impose conditions on Mr McSherry’s class 1 medical certificate. We were also troubled by the significant differences between the opinions expressed in Associate Professor Navathe’s statement of 8 October 2013 on the one hand, and his oral evidence on the other.

56. The respondent’s decision of 6 August 2013 is set aside and in substitution for that decision it is decided that Mr McSherry is entitled to the issue of class 1 and class 2 medical certificates, without conditions.

---

---

273
244
CASA
FAWCETT

Cost of Investigations
1. What was the cost of the investigation ‘Antidepressant Usage and Civilian Aviation Activity in Australia 1993-2004’?
2. What has been the financial cost to CASA of the last five AAT Hearings in which CASA has been involved? Please provide the following:
a. Staff involved;
b. Number of witnesses called;
c. Length of time;
d. Legal fees;

---

---

The CAD Test does not "simulate" anything, much less an "operational situation" remotely connected to aviation. Therefore, the CAD Test is not a valid test for the purposes of CASR 67.160(6)(c).

The PMO needs to brush up on his comprehension skills and look up the words "simulate", "operational" and "situation" in the dictionary. The phrase "simulates an operational situation" has an obvious and uncontroversial meaning.

---

---

"operational endorsement" means any of the following endorsements:
(a) an aerial application endorsement;
(b) a flight activity endorsement;
(c) a flight examiner endorsement;
(d) an instrument endorsement;
(e) a low-level endorsement;
(f) a night VFR endorsement;
(g) a night vision imaging system endorsement;
(h) a private instrument endorsement;
(i) a training endorsement;
(j) a flight engineer examiner endorsement;
(k) a flight engineer training endorsement.

"operational rating" means any of the following ratings:
(a) an aerial application rating;
(b) an examiner rating;
(c) an instructor rating;
(d) an instrument rating;
(e) a low-level rating;
(f) a night VFR rating;
(g) a night vision imaging system rating;
(h) a private instrument rating.

"simulated flight" time means time spent in a flight simulation training device during which a pilot is performing the duties of a pilot.

"simulated IMC" means flight in an aircraft or flight simulation training device during which the pilot is prevented from viewing the external horizon.

---

---

Today we have ... Applicants for a Class 1 Medical Certificate must either satisfy the criteria specified in CASR 67.150, or be found by CASA not to pose a danger to safety on account of their CVD.

---

---

(e) either:

(i) the applicant meets the relevant medical standard; or

(ii) if the applicant does not meet that medical standard—the extent to which he or she does not meet the standard is not likely to endanger the safety of air navigation;

---

---

Witness the fact that most aviation accidents and incidents are caused by humans with perfect colour perception.

---

---

The decision under review is set aside and the matter remitted to the respondent for reconsideration in accordance with a direction that a condition requiring the provision to the respondent of alcohol screening tests on a quarterly basis not be imposed on the applicant’s class 1 or class 2 medical certificates.

1. The applicant, Mr Peter Ryan, is a commercial pilot by occupation. He holds a commercial pilot (helicopter) licence and a private pilot (fixed wing) licence. The respondent, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, is of the view that Mr Ryan may have a problem with alcohol abuse. In February 2014, when the Authority renewed his aviation medical certificate, it imposed a condition which required him to undertake quarterly alcohol screening tests and to forward the results of those tests to the Authority.

2. Mr Ryan objects to the imposition of the condition. He says that it is unnecessary and unwarranted. He seeks a review of the Authority's decision to impose the condition.

3. For the reasons that follow I am satisfied that Mr Ryan is correct. The evidence does not warrant the imposition of such a condition.

---

---

22. The case for the Authority relies upon studies that show an increased risk of alcohol-related accidents or incidents in pilots who had been convicted of drink-driving. These studies led Dr Pooshan Navathe, the Authority's Principal Medical Officer and the decision maker in the present case, to conclude:

1. A history of driving whilst under the influence of alcohol is a serious issue from an aviation perspective.

Whether that is so or not seems to me not to matter. The issue in the present case is whether the material establishes that Mr Ryan engaged in, or had a personal history of, the problematic use of alcohol. In my view it does not. That being so, I conclude that Mr Ryan satisfies the only criteria in issue in these proceedings and thus meets the medical standard for class 1 and class 2 medical certificates.

---

---

The Tribunal sets aside the decision dated 31 May 2013 to cancel Mr Hoore's medical certificates.

The Tribunal remits the matter to the respondent for reconsideration with the direction that at the time of the reviewable decision the extent to which the applicant did not meet the medical standards for a Class 1 or Class 2 medical certificate is not likely to endanger the safety of air navigation if the following conditions are imposed..."

---

---

35. A/Prod Navathe went on to explain in oral testimony the possible consequences of a seizure of a pilot in the cockpit. During a seizure the person can have sometimes quite violent spasms, contractures of the body and limbs and would become incapacitated. In a single pilot operation this would be obviously disastrous. In a dual control cockpit with two pilots, a fitting pilot could interfere with the controls such as the rudder or the control column. An unconscious pilot could slump forward onto the control column. In addition the second pilot could find the situation distracting, which could be dangerous if in a critical stage of flight.

36. Mr Hoore does not contest this but highlights an inconsistency in the respondent's argument, pointing out that CASA does not regulate the health of passengers who can sit in the second control seat in dual control aircraft. Such passengers could be subject to seizures with the same potential outcome.

---

---

46. The respondent points out that every decision is made case-by-case and is based on individual circumstances. No two situations are the same. A/Prof Navathe explained in considerable detail the regulatory medical decision-making process in his written submission[5] and in oral testimony. He stressed the role of evidence based medicine and the collegial nature of the decision making process. He explained the medical staff of CASA are experienced in aviation medicine and many of the doctors hold pilots licences and are experienced pilots. A/Prof Navathe explained that before a decision is made to suspend a medical certificate, the case is referred to the Complex Case Management (CCM) Committee to gain a broader opinion from his colleagues in the medical branch of CASA. This process was followed for Mr Hoore and notes of the CCM of 29 May 2013 are included in evidence.

---

---

50. Mr Hoore also questioned the consistency of CASA's own regulations in relation to their risk analysis on the second pilot in his case. In his submission[7] he referred to CASR Part 61.405 that provides pilots with the option of having a drivers medical certificate, which he sees as being of a lesser standard but more easily achievable. This is evidenced by the restriction placed on such pilots by the regulation, that they can carry no more than one passenger. However, this restriction is lifted if there is a licenced pilot in the second control seat. This he asserts is clear evidence that CASA accepts the ameliorating effect a second pilot has on the risk to air safety.

---

---

63. We have concluded, and indeed it was never a contentious issue, that Mr Hoore does not meet the medical standard for the issue of either a Class 1 or Class 2 medical certificate. The extent to which Mr Hoore fails to meet the standard is unlikely to endanger the safety of air navigation with conditions imposed to ameliorate that situation. The respondent believes no such conditions exist. We disagree with this determination. We have accordingly imposed conditions, which require, inter alia, that the applicant fly at all times with an appropriately qualified and rated pilot.

---

---

That disclosure prompted the Authority to require him to provide an assessment by a psychiatrist in relation to his alcohol consumption and its associated risk.

---

---

‘Madness in great ones must not unwatched go’. So says King Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I was reminded of the phrase when reading David Owen’s fascinating book, The Hubris Syndrome. Lord Owen was Britain’s youngest foreign secretary in the late 1970s, then leader of a new political party, the Social Democratic Party, so he has seen most of the world’s top leaders at close quarters. He was also a doctor before he became a politician, so he neatly combines medical and political insights.

His thesis, in a nutshell, is that the ‘hubris syndrome’ –over-confidence leading to self-destruction - is a particular kind of mental illness which affects not just politicians but military commanders and heads of large companies. The idea that power goes to people’s heads is not of course new. Lord Acton gave the thought classical expression when he remarked that ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. But Owen has taken exceptional care to identify ‘patterns of behaviour’ which are evidence of the existence of this illness in leaders.

Symptoms include over-ambition; obsession with presentation and the need to occupy centre-stage; self-identification with the state; a messianic sense of mission; the belief that one is accountable only to God or history; loss of contact with reality; a tendency to allow the ‘broad vision’ to overcome practical considerations; and inattention to detail leading to incompetence in execution. Surprisingly Owen omits what I would regard as the chief symptom of a leader’s hubris: his belief in his own indispensability.

The disease grows the longer the leader stays in power. ... This excessive self-confidence leads him into misinterpreting the reality round him and into making mistakes. Eventually he gets his come pence and meets his nemesis which destroys him’.

---

---

Just imagine the "the risks to aviation safety caused by the unnecessary stress imposed on pilots by zealots on an unjustified medical crusade". CP.

---

---

if any changes are proposed to CVD regulations and practices in the future there will be full consultation with the industry before any changes are made.

---

---

...any proposals for future changes would be consistent with CASA's ongoing commitment to the use of safety cases to support such changes and involve detailed consultation with the aviation industry in the consideration of any change proposals.

---

---

How does CASA deal with pilots with a colour vision deficiency?

CASA has reviewed the application of Civil Aviation Safety Regulation Part 67 – which covers the medical certification of pilots - as it relates to pilots with colour vision deficiency (CVD).

CASA is not changing the regulations relating to CVD but is putting in place new procedures to better align with the existing regulations.

There will be no impact on existing pilots as the new procedures will relate to new applicants only.

If the Ishihara test is failed, a certificate will be offered restricted to day VFR only. If the applicant wants this restriction removed, they must pass one of the tests as per Part 67.

---

---

If the Ishihara test is failed, a certificate will be offered restricted to day VFR only. If the applicant wants this restriction removed, they must pass one of the tests as per Part 67.

---

---

Was not a fully paid up member of the "Iron Ring" overheard remarking to a Pollie "But minister if we had to provide proof, we'd need to employ another hundred people"??..says it all really.

---

---

From the Director of Aviation Safety John McCormick

This is the last time I will be communicating with the aviation community in my role as CASA’s Director of Aviation Safety. My slightly extended term as Director is completed at the end of August 2014. The last five and a half years have been challenging, satisfying and at times difficult. I firmly believe that as I leave CASA it is a better and more effective air safety regulator and I know it is respected by leading regulators around the world. Like any good organisation CASA is a team of people with a mix of skills, knowledge and experience that when constructively managed deliver excellent outcomes. In 2014 I look at CASA and see a clearer focus on priorities, documented processes and procedures that are followed as required, better training and support for staff and an understanding that decision making must be transparent and fair. Safe skies for all is the goal that drives CASA.

Never-the-less I know CASA and myself in particular have our critics. Some of the critics offer constructive criticism and this is welcomed and indeed valued. I have never pretended CASA has all the answers to every issue relating to aviation safety. Right through my term I have encouraged and facilitated consultation, information sharing and debate. I know this work to get the best possible safety outcomes through joint efforts by CASA and the aviation community will continue. However, I firmly believe that as a regulator CASA also has a responsibility to make judgements, take decisions and to act in the interests of protecting and improving aviation safety. Naturally these actions must be based on evidence and solid data and be taken following sound processes and procedures that ensure fairness and transparency. It follows, of course, that when a regulator takes actions not everyone is happy. Again, I have had no problem with people putting their point of view and arguing their case as that is their right if they disagree with CASA. But just because some people may disagree it does not mean CASA is necessarily wrong or should step away from its position. Sadly when some of CASA’s critics have not got their own way the debate has degenerated and become personal, which is not constructive and does nothing for aviation safety. It is a fact of human nature that some people will personally attack others as a way of diverting too close an examination of themselves.

The future for CASA will be positive. Our people are committed to their work, their organisation and Australian aviation. I am sure any changes made to CASA in the future will further strengthen the organisation and the outcomes it delivers for all Australians. I look forward to watching CASA become an even more effective safety regulator as Australian aviation grows and prospers.

Best regards
John F McCormick

---

---

just because some people may disagree it does not mean CASA is necessarily wrong or should step away from its position

---

---

Naturally these actions must be based on evidence and solid data and be taken following sound processes and procedures that ensure fairness and transparency.

---

---

CS - Hasn't your Pilot's Union any balls?

---

---

With the ink barely dry on a scathing review of its performance, CASA finds itself in another controversy
　
WRITER: MICHAEL GISICK

Though CASA has made no public comment about the Aviation Safety Regulation Review released at the end of May, the results of the government-ordered inquiry could hardly have been received as a compliment. Appearing to foreshadow a significant overhaul of the air safety regulator, the review described CASA as inappropriately adversarial, a poor communicator, and so out of touch with the industry it oversees that its leadership was only dimly aware of how deeply it was resented.

If those judgments left CASA feeling chastised, however, it didn’t immediately show. Barely a week after the review was released, the agency was back in the news over an episode that, to critics, displayed exactly the kind of heavy-handed touch for which it had just been criticised.

At issue were regulations governing pilots with colour vision deficiency, or CVD, often referred to as colour blindness but, in fact, a spectrum of conditions affecting an estimated one-tenth of the male population who are able to perceive a smaller number of colours than most people. Among Australia’s roughly 36,000 licensed pilots, about 400 have a color vision deficiency of some measure, including around 140 commercial pilots.

For almost two decades, Australia has had some of the most flexible regulations in the world regarding such pilots, but based on letters sent by CASA to air operators in early June, that position appeared to be shifting.

The letters referred to "recent medical research" that, according to CASA, "indicates that the safety-related implications of an individual’s CVD may be more significant than they were initially considered to be." As a result, the letter said, CASA was "reviewing the situation" and operators were urged to do the same.

"I write to you now, as the holder of an air operator’s certificate (AOC) who may employ one or more affected pilots, to encourage you to consider whether it is safe to allow those pilots to continue to exercise flightcrew privileges under your AOC, subject only to the existing condition, and what adjustments to those arrangements you may consider to be appropriate, in the interests of safety, pending CASA’s further determination of the matter," the letter, signed by Peter Fereday, CASA’s executive manager for industry permissions, read.

Though the letter did not specify what medical research it referred to, it is understood the reference was to a recent study conducted by New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority principal medical officer Dougal Watson. Published in the February edition of Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, an academic journal, the study compared how 78 countries assess and regulate CVD pilots. Despite International Civil Aviation Organization requirements that pilots be able to perceive colours "necessary for the safe performance in duties," Watson’s study found no clear definition of what that standard meant and wide discrepancies between how it was applied from one country to the next.

At one extreme, the study found, an applicant making a single error on a standard colour perception test, known as an Ishihara plate, would be disqualified from a Class 1 medical assessment. At the other end of the spectrum, a pilot "failing every color vision test required by the regulatory authority may be issued a medical assessment allowing commercial and airline copilot privileges," Watson wrote. Such wide divergence, Watson warned, could encouraged "aeromedical tourism" where pilots might shop around for the country with the most lax regulations.

The paper does not, however, appear to include significant new evidence of safety risks associated with CVD pilots, as CASA seemed to claim in its letter to AOCs. In the study, Watson acknowledged a "paucity" of aviation mishaps to which the colour vision deficiency of pilots had been identified as a contributing factor. Watson also acknowledged a lack of adequate research regarding the degree of colour perception required for safe aircraft operations, or which colours mattered most. The research, in short, identified a problem – a lack of uniform standards – but not the problem CASA seemed to claim.

To say that CASA is a frequent target of conspiracy theories is putting it strongly. It is fair to say, however, that to its many critics the agency’s perceived lack of transparency and fair dealing are often seen as cover for an agenda that, if not exactly hidden, is less than openly stated. This produces theories with an often rather conspiratorial appearance.
Thus, in this case, the apparent disconnect between the new medical research and the argument CASA seemed to be making on its basis, and the opaque manner with which CASA presented that research in a letter that didn’t make clear what it was referring to, has led critics to alternative explanations for CASA’s renewed interest in CVD.

The most common one is a case pending before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal brought by John O’Brien, a regional airline pilot with CVD who is challenging a decision barring him from becoming a captain. Dr Arthur Pape, an aeromedical examiner and colour deficient pilot whose own 1987 appeal before the Tribunal led to the current regulations allowing CVD pilots, said the O’Brien case, set to be heard on July 21, had produced a "tsunami of hysterical and irrational activity" within CASA. That tempest had been further inflamed by an "unprecedented interrogation of CASA on this topic in the Australian Senate" during Senate Estimates in late May.

Indeed, Pape and others point to comments by CASA director John McCormick before a Senate Estimates committee as presaging the June letter to AOCs. During the hearing, McCormick told the committee that Australia’s liberal policies with regard to CVD were at odds with those of most other countries.

"When we get to the point where we are pushing the boundaries, where we are pushing the science, looking for other ways to get around what could possibly be indicated from the clinical side is a dangerous thing to do, we are starting to impact on my ability to discharge my duties under section 9 of the Civil Aviation Act, and that is to provide safety," McCormick said.
Needless to say, the safety of passengers trumps the right of anyone in particular to pilot an aircraft, and that most other countries have more restrictive regulation with regard to colour vision might seem a reasonable cause for concern. But Pape and others say there remains no evidence that CVD pilots pose a risk – and plenty that they do not.

The 1987 Tribunal case brought by Pape after he was refused an endorsement to fly at night included what is widely seen as the most comprehensive assessment ever undertaken of the role of colour vision in flight. The Tribunal’s ruling in favour of Pape was based largely on the argument that most colour cues in the cockpit were redundant. For example, indicator lights for landing gear, usually red, turned green when the gear was deployed, but there were generally three green lights and only one red light. Colour deficient pilots could still perceive differing intensity of light, and while they might see red as orange, they could still tell it was different than white, or no light at all. Two years after the Pape case, the tribunal reaffirmed its decision, this time with regard to a commercial pilot.

As Pape and others are quick to point out, in the years since no flight incidents in Australia have been attributed to the colour vision deficiency of a pilot, despite hundreds of such pilots having had successful careers. The only known incident overseas, the 2002 crash of a Boeing 727 freighter that hit trees on its approach to landing in the United States, remains a subject of some dispute. Though the first officer’s CVD was listed as a contributing factor in the crew’s failure to establish a proper glidepath, a report by the NTSB largely blamed crew fatigue and the failure of the captain and flight engineer to monitor the approach. According to Pape, the report contains no discussion of the role the first officer’s CVD played in the accident.

"It is my view that CASA’s actions and the responses by the director and the principal medical officer to the Senate Estimates Hearings reflect an absurd and indefensible position," Pape wrote in an online commentary. "Claims of ‘medical evidence’ by both in support of their stance cannot be substantiated because such evidence does not exist."

That view has received the backing of pilot unions, with the Virgin Independent Pilots Association weighing in against what it described as a discriminatory move. "Whilst VIPA always recognises that aviation safety remains paramount, we condemn CASA’s new procedures relating to CVD pilots," VIPA executive director Simon O’Hara said. "The fact is, there are hundreds of commercial pilots with CVD who have passed check and line training requirements and subsequently have thousands of hours flying without incident, who will be impacted by these restrictive practices."

In a letter to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss, the Australian and International Pilots Association also linked CASA’s position to the upcoming tribunal case and said its bellicose approach undermined whatever hope for change had come from the recent review Truss had ordered.

"In many ways, this cynical attempt by the senior executives of CASA to attack the long-standing CVD policy position of Australia, in concert with their intention to use the [Tribunal] to wind that policy back, has dulled some of the glimmer of hope that the industry attributed to your Aviation Safety Regulatory Review," AIPA wrote.

"Given the path that CASA seems determined to follow in regard to CVD pilots, AIPA strongly recommends that you accept the evidence of many years of safe operations by CVD pilots in Australia that this is not a safety issue and that you consequently intervene to direct a more sensible and less expensive approach to whatever procedural issue that is motivating CASA to further alienate much of the Australian aviation industry."

For its part, CASA sought to dial down the controversy after an initial round of news reports suggested it might be moving to ground colour deficient pilots. The agency’s spokesman, Peter Gibson, told the ABC no such grounding was in the works.

"We’re not grounding any pilots, we’re not putting any further restrictions on any pilots, we’re simply saying there is some new information out there which we’re considering," Gibson told the national broadcaster. Any future changes, Gibson added, would only come after months or years of consultation.

Perhaps, as Gibson seemed to suggest, this was all being blown out of proportion. But if nothing else, the incident was yet more evidence of how little stock most of the industry places in CASA’s idea of consultation.

---