Six airports to be decertified including Mallacoota
 

I have made several AngeFlights to Mallacoota - its a very isolated community with very limited health services - I'm disappointed that I'll loose the option of an instrument approach.

Does anyone know what would need to be done for it to retain certification?


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-...bZXUYv7a8e8wIc

Only a small requirement to maintain certification called “Part 139”.
More council owned facilities and mining ventures are disappearing on a regular basis.

It may required some “well-off” financial contributors to keep it certified or community fundraising or lobbying local/state and federal government. It’s a sad state of affairs when you cannot keep a community asset in a fair state of operation.

So CASA introduce new rules then want to go and exempt everyone from the new rules??? Why bother in the first instance?

The same council runs Bairnsdale and Marlo/Orbost.

I’ve been trying to work with them to them to get cameras installed, even making the front page of the local paper and still nothing from the council. They keep saying “it’s all in the airport master plan” which has been in progress for the last 15 years. A joke.

That story is all over the place. How is Ambulance Victoria and other emergency services obtaining "permission to land using the instrument flight approach"?

Apply to CASA and grandfather the existing infrastructure.The council didn't do anything. They worked out how much it might cost, sh*t themselves, and didn't look at options.

Question....How do the RFDS, Police, Firefighters, Air Ambulance etc., get along if called upon to land in IMC conditions at this 'unlicensed aerodrome'...

For an evac or whatever..??

Sorry Mr T,
We must have been typing at the same time....and I ain't up to your speed.....

That's cos my course was 25 after yours!

The emergency Services can still do the instrument approach - it's called the Merimbula RNP approach. If the ambulance can't get in from grid lowest safe
the only alternative is a road transport to Merimbula.
Love these changes that send aviation backwards. Like medical flights in Part 135 now have to apply the performance requirements of Part 121, so now
having to factor the landings at 1.43 and 1.67. Wipes out a huge amount of airfields for the King Air 350 - airfields that have been used for eons.

I’ve taken the community concerns over the future operation of Mallacoota Airport directly to the Federal Minister for Transport.

Changes made by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) have led to a decertification of the airport for instrument landings in times of poor visibility.

I am supporting the Shire of East Gippsland in its efforts to get the Minister and CASA to understand the unintended consequences of the new rules.

The changes which have impacted regional airports like Mallacoota are the latest in a long list of compliance costs and regulations which are impacting the general aviation sector.

The regulatory burden which falls on the aviation industry has a disproportionate impact on smaller regional operators who don’t have a vast administration team to do all the paperwork demanded by CASA.

As a former Minister, I was constantly trying to get the CASA bureaucracy to understand the real-world impacts of their rules and regulations on small operators.

These latest changes, supposedly in the name of safety, are more likely to endanger lives and delay treatment for locals and visitors to Mallacoota.

Mallacoota obviously relies on air access during emergency situations but also non-urgent flights to bring medical specialists to town will be impacted and people will have reduced access to preventative care.

Nobody wants to compromise on safety but nothing has changed at the Mallacoota Airport in terms of instruments landings in poor weather, except CASA has changed the rules.

#lovegippsland

Can we stop calling these sorts of things "Unintended Consequences", it implies there was any real thought as to consequences at all when CASA clearly just don't bother to stop and think about it.

Dear Ex-Minister,

Am I missing something here?
"As a former Minister, I was constantly trying to get the CASA bureaucracy to understand the real-world impacts of their rules and regulations on small operators."

Trying to distance yourself from an organisation over which you had direct control, as Minister, has to be the most disingenuous piece of political nonsense I have ever read.
You had the power to tell CASA how to operate and over-rule any bureaucratic decision you thought was against the interest of the people of Australia, who elected you.

If you were unable to get your own executive arm of government to administer the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations in a way that recognised "the real-world impacts" of their actions, this is a reflection on you, not them.
I was once told, by a senior manager in CASA, that his job was to ensure that nothing happened that would adversely affect the chances of his Minister being re-elected.

At that time, you were that Minister.

No he didn’t. That’s precisely why the Parliament sets up independent statutory authorities.

Only the Parliament can change this paradigm, but the Laborials (including Dazzling Darren Chester and whichever hack is the latest seat warmer) have generally been happy to abdicate responsibility to CASA.

Minister without power?
 

I agree with Mr. Approach, he could have issued detailed Statements of Expectations for one, and at least tried to resume proper Departmental and hence Ministerial control with an amended Act. The CASA Board and CEO, not to say much of the Can’tberra bureaucracy, would have sniffed the wind and come to heal. This would have meant Thatcher type leadership where policy was pursued in spite of risk and in full understanding of accountability and responsibility. It’s called democracy. The 34 year debacle of CASA, the independent Commonwealth sponsored monopoly flies in the face of the Westminster system that relies on Ministerial responsibility. Not one Transport Aviation Minister has had the mind to see what is wrong and at least attempt to rectify this disastrous CASA induced decline of our once busy General Aviation sector.
The 1988 idea of the Government Business Enterprise, a farcical piece of muddle headed policy if ever there was, is still there with the CASA make work salary factory and fee for everything including numerous unnecessary permissions.
The system gives lie to the argument for yet more independent commissions or bodies like your IBACS and ombudsman thus removing our elected representatives even further from responsibility and the power to make improvements.
Back in the 1960s the Ombudsman concept was enthusiastically taken up by the Victorian Liberal Party. I was one supporter of this new idea. Yes marvellous independence, like a footy umpire. The Premier Henry Bolte was dead against the whole idea.
He was so right, take away responsibility from your elected representatives and you will only spoil your democracy.
Take just one Ombudsman office, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, it spends $40 million every year. If that money was spent by our MPs looking after their constituents we would have far better governance.
If all of the money spent by wasteful CASA and take into account $billions generated by increased private enterprise GA, plus money from deleting your IBACs and put a proportion of that into making our courts more available you will get a much better and equable outcome.

And what is the penalty for failing to comply with the Minister's Statement of Expectations? Please cite the law that says: "If CASA does not comply with the Minister's Statement of Expectations [....insert words...]. Penalty: [...insert words...]."

He could have "at least tried to resume proper Departmental and hence Ministerial control with an amended Act." But he didn't want to. None of the Laborials do. They are quite happy to continue with bipartisan abdication to the regulator.

What now?
 

It’s easy enough to throw brickbats, how to make better is the question. Should there be a Private Members Bill to disband CASA and have its functions resumed in a Department of Government?
We need a Friends of Aviation group in the Parliament and the Member for Gippsland might well be a big help to formulating a reform policy.
So far as this latest CASA policy about IFR approaches into the likes of Mallacoota, words fail. But this is what to expect from the regulator which is simply out of control, costs and practicality are meaningless to CASA.

The Laborials, including Chester, won't support a Bill to that effect. Won't get through the Senate.

Don't blame me, I didn't vote for them.

Can’t be done?
 

Nobody would bother to put ideas out, here or anywhere else, unless there’s some hope that sooner or later there’ll be a collective view that inspires change through the Parliament.

IS this any different to CAsA's attempt a few years back when they were going to decertify several hundred airports', ALA's, hospital HLS', etc??

I particularly love this quote.
Unless you need to descend through cloud in order to see the runway.

And to think that idiot is the CEO of the organization that represents airports nationwide... FML.:ugh:

The consequences of CASAs actions are obvious to anyone who studies human behaviour:

- an increase in the number of CFIT fatalities at formerly certified airports.

Why? Because people will make up “home made” instrument approaches that attempt to duplicate what was once available.