Another Jab bites the dust.

[turboplanner]

A safety catch...designed to stop colateral damage to onlookers..You still couldn't prevent the accident could you. And every driver in that race would accept the risk of crashing and understand its part of the sport.

As some people have said, you can't prevent accidents, but what is going on here is preventing injury and death, and yes my example related to the duty of care owed by a Promoter to the spectators.

 

In terms of duty of care to the drivers, the promoter has a duty of care to provide a safe track and barriers and to keep the area free of solid objects and people, the Machine Examiner has a duty of care to ground a car if there's a safety defect, the Chief Steward has a duty of care to manage the behaviour of the drivers, and so on. When it all comes together various people are all managing their specific area. When that occurs the risk is very very low - most States haven't been as lucky as Victoria, but there we haven't killed a speedway driver in over 45 years - that's ZERO fatalities for four decades. That might give you an indication why I jump on safety when I see a constant flow of preventable recreational aircraft crashes.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Absolutely Tubz.

 

See, what I find difficult to understand, and im also referring here to Davids post above, is this. If a pilot prangs or has an issue which 'could' have lead to a bad prang (a jump pilot I know of who ran out of fuel 3 times in as many months) or indeed actually prangs and kills someone, he is innocent until proven guilty etc, someone has to take up the issue and 'prove' negligence or inibility etc. BUT, if the same pilot gets a skin cancer on his hand, or has any number of mild medical conditions, his medical is immediately suspended until some time frame is waited out. His Licence is therefor GONE until further notice. Could it not be argued that a significant "human" factor problem be actionable just as swiftly and totally as a medical issue? Something amiss with the 'human' is something wrong with the human, be it a bad ticker or a bad attitude...

 

I hope im making sense here.. Medicals are pulled every day, careers suspended or gone completely, all on the evidence of a blood test or a scan, and often misdiagnosed..(DJP could provide an example there). In some cases, pilots actually cause the deaths of pax and are up flying again in no time, pending some lengthy legal outcome.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

To put it another way, if the R44 pilot has another problem and kills someone, say, a relative of mine. I know who ill be chasing in court, and it wont be him, it will be the organisation that failed to act IN TIME to prevent it.

 

 

[turboplanner]

To put it another way, if the R44 pilot has another problem and kills someone, say, a relative of mine. I know who ill be chasing in court, and it wont be him, it will be the organisation that failed to act IN TIME to prevent it.

I agree, the organization issuing the licence or certificate has a duty of care to ensure the person maintains a safe standard via their ongoing assessment system.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Your logic is odd, pilots can and will make mistakes. Unlike companies, who can change their direction and address safety issues.

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

FT the inference here is that if application of due process was a bit more timely and the obvious outcome of that end process would be bye-bye lic/cert then the 2nd time would never have occured.......If the 2nd time happens to look remarkably like a ground hog day event then in this case the tax payer is about to make good loss and damage in a big way...

 

 

[turboplanner]

Absolutely Tubz.See, what I find difficult to understand, and im also referring here to Davids post above, is this. If a pilot prangs or has an issue which 'could' have lead to a bad prang (a jump pilot I know of who ran out of fuel 3 times in as many months) or indeed actually prangs and kills someone, he is innocent until proven guilty etc, someone has to take up the issue and 'prove' negligence or inibility etc. BUT, if the same pilot gets a skin cancer on his hand, or has any number of mild medical conditions, his medical is immediately suspended until some time frame is waited out. His Licence is therefor GONE until further notice. Could it not be argued that a significant "human" factor problem be actionable just as swiftly and totally as a medical issue? Something amiss with the 'human' is something wrong with the human, be it a bad ticker or a bad attitude...

 

I hope im making sense here.. Medicals are pulled every day, careers suspended or gone completely, all on the evidence of a blood test or a scan, and often misdiagnosed..(DJP could provide an example there). In some cases, pilots actually cause the deaths of pax and are up flying again in no time, pending some lengthy legal outcome.

Lets say a jump pilot runs out of fuel in as many months, and he is employed by a Club. The club has a duty of care to ensure safe jump operations, and that extends to auditing, monitoring and training their pilot to meet their safety standards. They would be idiots not to have a written pre-flight checklist, and not to have a written policy, and for that policy to include regular check rides and for those check rides to ensure the pilot correctly went through every pre-flight check. They would then be well on the way to meeting their duty of care obligations, but the next step is to monitor adherence to those procedures. If someone comes in and says "he ran out of fuel" there should be an interview, with notes taken on how it happened, and what will be put in place to prevent it happening again, and a warning issued.

 

Three things here:

 

• I take it that these fuel exhaustions are not being addressed as I just mentioned.
   
   
  
• A professional person OHS person carrying out the safety function for a company will be blanching at my rough attempt to explain. In most companies now you don't get past reception without some form of training.
   
   
  
• Ditto for a lawyer - the posts on this thread are just an attempt to explain the basics - there's no way you could bypass several years of law studies and go away using these posts for live operations.
   
   
  

 

 

Public liability usually revolves around:

 

• A civil suit where as David says the claimant has to prove negligence - usually pretty easy with a broken body lying in the wreckage.
   
   
  
• Prosecution by Police from Culpable Negligence (where very broadly someone did something he knew was wrong)
   
   
  

 

 

The Coroner is usually wanting to find out what killed the deceased, not who was to blame, but his/her decision can have a huge bearing on a public liability case. (there was one I recall where a claimant's associate blamed the track promoter for an unsafe track, which most of us agreed with, but detailed investigation showed the injury was caused by the skull hitting the roll cage, which was not permitted to happen under the car rules, so the duty of care claim moved off the track promoter and on to the car builder and machine examiner.

 

Your example of CASA withdrawing licence privilege for illness in general would be the Government discharging its duty of care. Whether the decision basis was fair or not would relate to ongoing management of the decision criteria which is another subject. (The fact that CASA at times does this very badly also concerns me)

 

Human factors - I totally agree with you, and in the example regarding Chief Stewards I mentioned earlier they are there precisely for Human Factors - We actually on-hands MANAGE Human Factors. So, aggressive behaviour, dithering misjudgements, regular failure to follow safety regulations, alcohol consumption, operating with an incapacitating injury. The end result is a very safe operation of what many people perceive to be a risky sport. We would never leave Pilots to address their own Human Factors themselves - we are usually unaware of our shortcomings. So this is an area of opportunity for GA and RA in recreational flying).

 

If Human Factors was actually MANAGED rather than just lightly tested once, the example you gave of a pilot up and out and crashing again would occur much less frequently because immediate action would be taken against him in the field (a little like a Random Breath test where the keys are taken off a driver at the roadside). The legal process of his previous transgressions will still take years because the Law has to be meticulous, but at least this way he most likely won't have a licence to continue doing the wrong thing.

 

Sorry if I seem to be rambling on over several posts, but I think its worthwhile to get an understanding of the big picture and where our decision obligations lie.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Your logic is odd, pilots can and will make mistakes. Unlike companies, who can change their direction and address safety issues.

We're not talking about my logic here.

 

The precedent Case that Public Liability suits are based on is all about a duty of care being owed to someone even if you make a mistake.

 

So it follows that your best ongoing defence is to have policies in place which minimise mistakes, and you certainly are not going to do something you know you shouldn't do (like take a passenger up for a 6 minute circuit 5 minutes before last light.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Don't Apolagize tubz. Thanks for your informed input, has cleared alot up for me. Cheers.

 

 

[Steve Donald]

Turbo. While I understand and agree with much of what you say, people have to accept that risk is part of life. The only way to be 100% safe is by not partaking in life. Sit inside wearing a faraday suit hoping that a jumbo doesn't land in your lounge room. The threat of litigation is everywhere. Can you point us to any documented evidence where a raa pilot has served 6 years or one day due to a post accident litigation? I'm not saying it's not been done just I'm not aware of it. There's a bloke flying around in a a new r44 in this area, a little over 1 year since he made grave errors in judgment and had an accident which killed his wife.My cooments related to minimizing both sides of the risk equation. If pilots don't accept the risk and do all they can to minimize it, then they should not fly.I've re read all my posts and can't find where I said " be careful" or " I'm always prepared". If your going to quote a statement please be sure the 'statement' was made. Litigation plays no part in the thinking when people's live are at stake, if someone gets killed financial or libertarian consequences are secondary. IMHO.

Reminds me of that old yarn about a bloke that insisted on getting the train to get to where he was going safely , he was killed during the trip a Plane hit the train.

 

Risk and accidents are fact, all you can do is enjoy life do your best to be safe and reflect on human factors once and awhile when making decisions, But when things like better safer through bolts are available and our choice to use them is ignored because of certification issues which could be done very quickly, This safety factor is out of our hands, and is an unnecessary risk, why i don't know all things fail but common sense should prevail where a problem is known.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

So how many times do you let your Jabiru try to kill you before you cut your losses?

 

 

[turboplanner]

This safety factor is out of our hands

Not if you take up a passenger.

 

What is the manufacturer's duty of care to the owner and operator?

 

What is the instructor's duty of care to the student?

 

What is the pilot's duty of care to the passenger?

 

 

[Steve Donald]

So how many times do you let your Jabiru try to kill you before you cut your losses?

Ha ha well just fly accordingly height planed track landing areas ect, the old 2 stroke way a lot of us remember the old points type 2 bangers meeting lots of farmers, as for the Jab one of strongest airframes around the engine is great until the bolts break fix the bolts all will be fine , mine is great just want to make it better and as safe as possible, anyway you should anticipate engine failure on every stage of flight no matter what you fly.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

You are working on the assumption that you can find safe landing every time the engine disintegrates. Any ideas why 2 strokes fell off in popularity?

 

 

[Yenn]

OK so what aircraft and engine do the pedantic knockers think we should all be flying?

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Just when the thread is heading on the right direction and becoming informative, in blows the tornado. Does it take you long to compose such well thought out, inspiring, brilliant, and balanced posts? Or are you just a natural, able to conjur thought provoking tidbits of literary genius at the drop of a hat?

 

Enuf is enuf mate, we can't handle any more of your genius, bring it down to our level... Please...

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

FT and MM, over on the Skysurfers forum they have a section called the "Carpark". Anything goes. You two seem to bait each other right across the forums. Not that i mind, but maybe Ian needs to set up a Carpark so you can both take it out there.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Ozzie, if you read a bit more you'd know where the problem is; it's certainly not 50 50. Motz is trying to address a very serious issue.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

And he is doing a very good job.

 

 

[M61A1]

You are working on the assumption that you can find safe landing every time the engine disintegrates. Any ideas why 2 strokes fell off in popularity?

If you felt that your engine was unreliable ( and all mechanical devices are prone to sudden stoppage), why would you fly over something you couldn't land on? Particularly for recreational flight.

 

 

[ahlocks]

There's been a bit of moderating of some recent posts. Those involved know why.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Holy snappers, its stinky sox alocks, where you been hiding?

 

 

[eightyknots]

Good idea. "The Topic" meaning no personal digs, etc.

 

 

[ahlocks]

... where you been hiding?

... been tornado watching......

(Now you and I both better behave or we'll get zotted for being offtopic... )

 

 

[Bandit12]

... been tornado watching......

I hate text speech. But for the first time in my life, I have to admit that I actually LOL'd