CASA Safety Video - Very Concerning
 

CASA Safety Education Video - Absolutely Underwhelming!

I have just come across the education section on the CASA website which hosts a safety video entitled Enhancing Pilot Skills – Expect the Unexpected. The presenter is CASA Safety Adviser Kirstie Winter.

In my opinion, I could not believe this is what’s offered as Australian aviation safety material.

Riddled with non-technical errors, it begs the question, how could it ever have been approved for broadcast. Considerable sections of the narration are vague with some dialogue actually conflicting with the slide text. On one occasion the presenter repeats the same line twice.

Now granted, it’s best to judge content rather than delivery, but when a presentation fails the most basic attention to detail an audience is rightly forgiven for disengaging. What makes this absolutely unforgiveable: the number one message in aviation safety and no doubt intended by this video is be diligent, take care, plan, communicate effectively, be thorough and do it right. What is presented is none of this. I don't believe the FAA or UK CAA for example would ever broadcast in such a fashion.

Unbelievably below grade for the nation’s lead agency for aviation safety and pilot training standards.

Maybe share a link?

Ask and ye shall receive.
.

just wondering - is that a video of a live seminar presentation?
Might explain the lack of polish.

Your observation may in fact be correct however I believe it makes no difference at all. In fact, the presenter even makes the same case........ regardless of whether you operate a light aircraft or you're the professional crew of a wide-body airbus, mistakes can happen and attention to safety is equally required from everyone (paraphrased - see the video). Ipso facto, no matter whether presenting safety training in an editing studio or in an auditorium, your standards must be equally high. The environment makes no difference.

The impact of this display is significant as it not only sets the bar for instructing standards far lower, it also exposes the culture at CASA, i.e there's not satisfactory attention to detail, poor peer oversight & review, poor quality control and generally a disregard for pride, reputation and workmanship.

How does a presentation like this make it onto the public record? Because no one within the organisation said its not good enough. That is very concerning.

Mental note. When pushing back my A320, remove pitot cover.

Seriously!

The 420 views it has received is, I suspect, an indication of the quality of the production!

Pretty dumbed down. Is this the level of competency the CASA believes exists within the industry?

I suspect strongly it is a video of a live presentation, the presenter is holding the remote for a projector and mentions previous seminars they have conducted and comments from participants in those seminars.

Personally I am not so worried about lack of polish in the presentation, (to me, getting up in front of people and delivering a perfect performance is not as important as getting up and delivering useful content in a reasonably digestible way - umms and arrs and stumbles can be forgiven if the material is useful). I would hate to have my briefings videoed and placed in public for criticism of my public speaking technique!

Should it have been made public? <Shrugs shoulders> I dunno - lots of times videos of seminars are made public to make them available to a wider audience who did not have the opportunity to attend. Again, if the material is useful, does it have to be polished? - it was a seminar not a slick video production.

Was it useful? Therein lies the rub.

For me it highlights the difficulty in doing human factor training. From the bits I watched I came away thinking... We have heard all this before.

This is a gross simplification but to me it often feels like human factors training often falls into the following structure:

1. Humans are fallible (here are reasons why we are fallible)
2. For that reason humans regularly make mistakes (here are some classic examples of mistakes humans make).
3. So now you know this... do not make mistakes (ie - do not be human!)
(and if the regulator is involved - do not be human or you will be punished!)

Good HF training IMO should be more along the lines of:

1. We regularly stuff up because we are human (nothing new here)
2. These stuff ups are often similar, decade after decade, fuel mismanagement, miscommunication, VFR->IMC, distraction etc. (again nothing new here)
3. Telling people to not make mistakes and just get it right from now on equates to telling people not to be human (it doesn't work)
4. Given we will make mistakes, what can we practically do to avoid (or minimise) our mistakes causing dramas?


Step 4 is the hard one.

How should we teach HF? (telling people to do a W+B or follow a IMSAFE checklist or whatever doesn't seem to cut it for me)

I find HF one of the hardest areas in aviation to teach. I do not think we do a good job of teaching it.

my 2c

Do you think that Nulli Secundus is involved in the production, and just thought up a way to increase the view count on this video?

KPI's reached and CASA bonuses all 'round for the successful video release! ;)

Such cynicism!

And there's no way jonkster was involved in any way with the video!

(The funding of CASA's safety promotion function has always ranged from 'barely adequate' to 'pathetic' in comparison with all the money wasted on 'reform' and the so-called 'leadership'.)

Gotta love the targeted advertising. Maybe this mob could have done a better job.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fc45d87d26.png

Ah Checkerboard, I was sure no one would pick that up.

My intention was not to draw attention to the degree of polish.

Its about the standard the regulator sets for itself and the quality of service delivery it believes the aviation community deserves. Representative leaders speaking with conviction and clarity boost the outcomes of the exercises they're leading. Consider that this grade of seminar gets repeated nationwide to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I'm of the view the regulator undervalues its own need for diligence and to lead by example. In turn, the community has less belief in the regulator. You have to practice what you preach, practice doesn't make perfect - perfect practice makes perfect etc. etc. ..... we all know the motivators.

No fault with the intention but then again, intention is not in question.

Come on CASA. This is below grade and you can and need to do better!

I don't see the problem?

The video presentation is average standard for CASA.

Barnaby Joyce is now the Minister and may ruffle CASA feathers, but he didn't do much last time he was in the Transport Minister's chair.

Years ago CASA ran a seminar called Crash Scene Investigator and it was about deconstructing a VMC into IMC accident. It had a well produced video titled "178 Seconds to Live". It had speakers from the BoM, ATSB and aviation medicine. As far as I recall it was well attended and well received. It was such a good format that a Canadian group copied the format and charged $400 for attendance. CASA's response to such a successful program? It was axed. That's how CASA views its safety promotion function. Now its just poorly produced videos and an online subscription to a flight safety magazine that is little more than a publicity blog.

Ye olde (and much respected) Aviation Safety Digest aka 'the crash comic' once had an article with much the same title.

Pinky you are correct! That is where I got the idea from. I remember reading it when I was a student pilot in 1992.

Back in my day…. The ASTB identified growing trends for us to try to tackle the following year at our seminars. They ranged from getting lost, to running out of fuel, but the deadliest was VFR into IMC. So I thought instead of getting guest speakers to go on for 45 minutes, why not make it more impactful and get the audience involved. Make it real. Make it memorable. Make the audiences Crash Scene Investigators! It took a while to put together and extract the right people from the various agencies but it came out beautifully in the end. The video 178 seconds took us 3 days to produce and hours and hours of listening to the right music and getting the perfect voice. Julien Pulvermaker BTW. Our genius Media Producer Dean did a wonderful job on it and was awesome coaching the speakers.

We as a team had a lot of freedom to be creative with our work which sadly changed over time. I wouldn’t take back a minute of it either.

And yes that Canadian guy did copy our CSI. Dean our producer told me once to always give away a good idea. It will make you come up with another one! Very wise words from one of the great CASA team members and dead set legend.

AWB

I can believe they'd offer this level of safety material, but I've seen their offerings over 35 years, and there's a definite method in their madness.

Whenever trying to make sense of something like this, the first question to be asked is the classic "Cui Bono?" Who Benefits? Since CASA's survival as a bureaucracy is dependent on "managing safety", it would threaten their existence if pilots really knew how to fly instead of knowing how to drive an aircraft in the sky by numbers. Once that's understood, their behaviour is easily comprehended, since it's an application of the survival instinct. Without the majority of aviation participants remaining ignorant of the simple truths about flying and safety, their future is ensured.
While I'm sure there'll be violent disagreement with that argument, it'd only be presented by those whose survival is inextricably linked to the maintenance of the status quo, much like political debate about a grand government project being led by a politician who has shares in the company leading the project. That's why the second thing to do is "Follow the money". In this case, the money trail is so complex and convoluted that the true beneficiaries are nowhere near the scene of the crime, but they are there, often hiding in plain sight.