Report of 'Light Aircraft' on fire near Gatton

[rgmwa]

What sanctions could RA-Aus realistically apply had he survived this accident? Revoking his RAA Certificate wouldn't have been much of a sanction because he was flying illegally anyway. It seems to me that any disciplinary action would or should have been applied by CASA in this case since he had a CASA Student Pilot licence and was flying a VH aircraft. It's pretty clear from the report that the pilot's actions coupled with inadequate aerobatic flying skills were responsible for this accident, not his RA-Aus membership or training. I assume he'd received some GA training somewhere along the line too, since he had a student licence. There must have been people around who knew what he was doing and could have had a quiet word. Maybe they did, but ultimately this pilot was responsible for what happened. Nevertheless it doesn't reflect well on recreational flying as a whole.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[reggie]

Yep, lets all look for someone to blame, instead of making people responsible for their own actions.

 

 

[Downunder]

I do get the feeling at times this forum is an avenue for GA fifth columnists out to bring the RAA down.....

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Tubs has a point in duty of care of his instructors but that assumes that only instructors affect flying behaviours, perhaps his wife had a duty of care, perhaps others that shared the field had a duty of care, perhaps his parents had a duty of care with parenting quality, perhaps it was the Indian scam call centre that was calling for the 600th time that month about the virus in his computer..... In fact perhaps everyone but him had a duty of care.

 

Or maybe he had the duty of care and failed to exercise it! Had he survived I wonder who would have been summonsed to court? Him or him and/or all the others mentioned above including the RAAus and or CASA ops teams?

 

Andy

 

 

[bexrbetter]

It could be argued that his RA-Aus (and GA) training had failed to instill in him a reasonable level of respect for the laws governing flying in this country.

You can not be serious.

 

I don't know what's gone wrong in Oz now that you can't just call someone out for the mistakes they have made all by themselves, it sure was different when I was growing up.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Tubs has a point in duty of care of his instructors but that assumes that only instructors affect flying behaviours, perhaps his wife had a duty of care, perhaps others that shared the field had a duty of care, perhaps his parents had a duty of care with parenting quality, perhaps it was the Indian scam call centre that was calling for the 600th time that month about the virus in his computer..... In fact perhaps everyone but him had a duty of care.Or maybe he had the duty of care and failed to exercise it! Had he survived I wonder who would have been summonsed to court? Him or him and/or all the others mentioned above including the RAAus and or CASA ops teams?

 

Andy

You clearly haven't taken my advice and spent about an hours flying time getting advice from a public liability specialist or you wouldn't be so cocky; you are just about to try stepping into the fire with Major where your chances of being selected as a respondent just went a few hundred percent higher.

 

On the off chance you were serious, and for people new to the forum, the plaintiff's lawyers decide who is going to get the invitation, and that usually STARTS with the pilot, or

 

his estate, and goes on to all the people who had a duty of care and breached it, and they are highly unlikely to pick an Indian scam call centre, because they have to prove these people had a duty of care and breached that duty of care.

 

Just repeating that what I believe dutchroll was suggesting was that RAA "crack down on" behaviour within the area it currently controls to the people it currentyl controls, who are operating without registration, or certificate.

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

I was taught that in drafting contracts you do not need to include as terms, anything that is legislated law, for example you never need to specify the driver shall not exceed the speed limit" because a contract is only a contract while the law is observed and it fails if to meet the contract you have to break the law. Ie to drive from a to b in the contracted time you must exceed the speed limit

 

So with that said does RAAus have a duty of care to regularly remind pilots that they must obey the law of the land?

 

I very much doubt it, it probably does have a duty of care to however remind them to obey the laws of physics which are much less forgiving.

 

Andy

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Illegal activity is clearly in CASAs area of responsibility. RAAus has no sanction to prosecute in the GA arena and all it can do to it's own members via ops and a board decision is to cancel or suspend somebodys certicate or remove endorsements. Doesn't appear as though either would have had any impact in this case.

 

The report by the ATSB is officially closed......there is to be no more investigation into this incident.........Maj....

 

 

[pmccarthy]

If he hadn't had an RAAus ticket would he have been emboldened to stunt on a student licence?

 

 

[turboplanner]

Andy,

 

Paragraph 1.

 

Today, if a person specifies that a load must be delivered by a certain time "or else" and that involves excessive speed or contravening driving hours limits he can face a criminal chain of responsibility charge, and some already have been convicted. If someone was killed the charge is likely to be manslaughter.

 

One of Australia's biggest company addresses this in terms of its employees by clearly pointing out its policy that regardless of whether an employee is called in to the office or required to travel anywhere the requirement is never to take precedence over complying with speed limits, and the policy is a non- query reason for not making a location at the specified time.

 

Paragraph 2.

 

Another major company had been taking the same line as you suggest and claiming they didn't have a duty of care issue if their dealers broke the law because they were independent businesses. After some legal advice on this the Company wrote to every single Dealer Principal attaching a contract which required his Dealership to comply with the law and maintain written records, which would be audited by the major company, and failure to do this was grounds for termination of the Dealer Agreement.

 

Paragraph 3.

 

This gets closer to RAA's responsibilities during the time its instructor is turning a pedestrian/car driver into a Pilot in Command.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Illegal activity is clearly in CASAs area of responsibility. RAAus has no sanction to prosecute in the GA arena and all it can do to it's own members via ops and a board decision is to cancel or suspend somebodys certicate or remove endorsements. Doesn't appear as though either would have had any impact in this case.The report by the ATSB is officially closed......there is to be no more investigation into this incident.........Maj....

Firstly, for the protection of its members RAA should do everything possible to minimise unlawful and unsafe behaviour, through training, Safety Management System, and Compliance and enforcement system, while the person is under the control of RAA.

 

In terms of doing this, for example CASA has required RAA to carry out certain safety duties and have an operating SMS since 2010.

 

While the ATSB investigation is closed, if someone has been financially disadvantaged by this crash, that doesn't mean the lawyers haven't started with press reports, the ATSB Report, Coroner's Report, and their own investigations relating to duty of care which would all come together in maybe 3 to 5 years time.

 

 

[rankamateur]

If he hadn't had an RAAus ticket would he have been emboldened to stunt on a student licence?

That is a bit like saying an armed robber was emboldened to break into and rob a post office because he collected stamps as a child, and still has his collection!

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Dutch, I am really surprised no one at the Gatton Air Park said anything to anyone prior to this accident.

 

 

[frank marriott]

Turbo

 

Maybe I'm taking your statement out of context -

 

i.e." while the person is under the control of RAA"

 

But when I am flying a VH aircraft on a CASA licence, then I consider RAA have no control/responsibility for my actions as I am not exercising the privileges of my RAA certificate.

 

SPL being a CASA licence (all be it with limitations)

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Andy,Paragraph 1.

 

Today, if a person specifies that a load must be delivered by a certain time "or else" and that involves excessive speed or contravening driving hours limits he can face a criminal chain of responsibility charge, and some already have been convicted. If someone was killed the charge is likely to be manslaughter.

 

One of Australia's biggest company addresses this in terms of its employees by clearly pointing out its policy that regardless of whether an employee is called in to the office or required to travel anywhere the requirement is never to take precedence over complying with speed limits, and the policy is a non- query reason for not making a location at the specified time.

 

Paragraph 2.

 

Another major company had been taking the same line as you suggest and claiming they didn't have a duty of care issue if their dealers broke the law because they were independent businesses. After some legal advice on this the Company wrote to every single Dealer Principal attaching a contract which required his Dealership to comply with the law and maintain written records, which would be audited by the major company, and failure to do this was grounds for termination of the Dealer Agreement.

 

Paragraph 3.

 

This gets closer to RAA's responsibilities during the time its instructor is turning a pedestrian/car driver into a Pilot in Command.

perhaps my examples were poor in that they are contract law where as you are talking criminal law, criminal law is at the end of the day prosecuted by a DPP somewhere which has alleged crimes referred to it by the appropriate investigative agency.....RAAus is not one of those, CASA however is.

 

Contract law is a civil law question which is ultimately where questions of duty of care with a view to seeking monetary damages get tested, nothing you have said changes the contract law implications.

 

Anyway, I'm well outside my area of comfort and knowledge and ultimately RAAus are unlikely to resolve whether there is or isn't a duty of care within the board but rather they might need specialist professional advice as you do infer......

 

My question to you is the same as I asked Dutchy, what exactly would you have RAAus do? what needs to be added to instructional activity's, or added to manuals and procedures because that is all that RAAus is responsible for, alternately what is it within the deed of arrangement that CASA have with us that in this specific case we have failed to meet?

 

Andy

 

 

[Teckair]

The problem here was the PIC, even if he was reported it is most likely nothing would be done about it. Try reporting something illegal and see what happens. Illegal dangerous things go on all the time in aviation and we have a anti dobbing attitude where the messenger gets shot. These sort of things happen because people are stupid and you cannot change that.

 

 

[David Isaac]

I read it as RAA having an ongoing due diligence obligation to remind pilots about the law and unsafe practices; as in fact is regularly done in the sport pilot magazine.

 

To FTs question, as this fellow was well known at Gatton, it must have been well known he was flying illegally. I find it hard to imagine that he wasn't approached on more than one occasion warning him of the implications of his illegal activities. Had he been in the habit of conducting aerobatic activities in his aircraft? Who would attempt an aileron roll at such a low altitude if it had not been done many times at altitude?

 

 

[facthunter]

Any person being aware of an occurrence that is dangerous of an aviation nature is REQUIRED to report the matter to CASA. This can be an ordinary non aviation person, but if "qualified" persons are aware it makes their neglect more serious. I can't see that the RAAus having issued him with a CERTIFICATE provided it is documented and carried out properly and they didn't observe traits that might be reasonably linked to the particular activity., that is/was the problem.

 

I can't se that a driving school who trains a driver who happens to be very skilled and happens to use that skill to drive ram raid or getaway cars is the responsibility of the driving school or the licence issuing authority, either. Nev

 

 

[Cooda]

Yep, lets all look for someone to blame, instead of making people responsible for their own actions.

It may be apocryphal but I was under the impression Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft et al stopped manufacturing light singles when they were found to have potential liability for accidents, such as in the case of an untrained, unlicensed drunk who stole an aircraft and killed himself in the inevitable crash.(?)

 

Humanity - the first species to legislate and litigate itself to extinction.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Cooda, that was primarily PRODUCT Liability, where lawyers started to get huge punitive penalties awarded along with huge claims - $10 million penalty and $10 million payment to the injured/deceased estate was the norm.

 

Product Liability has come to Australia and was mandated into law I think about 1999, but hasn't been tested in the High Court yet and no one is putting their hand up to be the first because of the huge cost with no guarantee for winning. I only know about it relating to cars and trucks, but it may have covered all product manufacture.

 

A product liability case would kick in where a manufacturer's product developed a history of for example brake failure resulting from faulty design or materials.

 

 

[David Isaac]

Product liability legislation applies across the board in Australia Tubz especially when it comes to 'Fitness for purpose' and 'Merchantable quality'. It is just that in Australian courts you must prove actual loss in order to claim compensation. In the US the jury will award compensatory damages and in certain circumstance punitive damages.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Contract law is a civil law question which is ultimately where questions of duty of care with a view to seeking monetary damages get tested, nothing you have said changes the contract law implications.

I'm not up in the law enough to know whether this is correct, but from my experience, companies like Slater & Gordon, Maurice Blackburn, Shine etc. are Tort related but don't seem to be contract lawyers.

 

My question to you is the same as I asked Dutchy, what exactly would you have RAAus do? what needs to be added to instructional activity's, or added to manuals and procedures because that is all that RAAus is responsible for, alternately what is it within the deed of arrangement that CASA have with us that in this specific case we have failed to meet?/QUOTE]Live the legislation in every way, which is their duty of care; a monthly message from the president in what is really a closed magazine is only the start which must be followed by

 

widening the message, training the trainers, adding compliance and enforcement, adding a compliance and enforcement regime, and generally moving to a duty of care environment where anyone who goes through the training system knows what ALL the regulations are and how to comply with ALL the skills required without having to come on this site and ask questions which indicate they can't flight plan, safely control and aircraft, or exercise a safe behaviour culture.

 

Above all else, the board members should be daily carrying out their duties as spelled out by CASA in 2010 because they can be nailed in a court if they don't, and every days they don't have the SMS mandated by CASA in 2010 in place is another day when a crash can occur which takes away their house, or could impact all members.

 

It's actually a Deed of Agreement with CASA which is renewed/changed every year and could be anything but in recent years has been a slim document not really relevant to what we are talking about. However if back in 2009, that Deed of Agreement contained an instruction to RAA to do some particular thing to prevent injuries/fatalities, then RAA would still have a duty of care to continue doing it because it was a risk discovery point, just as learning after a crash that a certain model aircraft with a certain component was unsafe whether the crash was yesterday or ten years ago.

 

I certainly would invite a public liability lawyer to a board meeting and ask for comments on a prepared list of questions (not written by a risk rat), and then produce a Risk Behaviour Policy and make sure every single member received a copy.

 

That's the tip of the iceberg, I'm not a lawyer and that's not legal advice.

 

Again, what dutchroll suggested was going out and talking to the Members, and it's hard to understand the massive over reaction and hair splitting to that suggestion.

[turboplanner]

TurboMaybe I'm taking your statement out of context -

i.e." while the person is under the control of RAA"

 

But when I am flying a VH aircraft on a CASA licence, then I consider RAA have no control/responsibility for my actions as I am not exercising the privileges of my RAA certificate.

 

SPL being a CASA licence (all be it with limitations)

Not referring to this particular incident, if I have never flown before, I'm not going to be able to fly up a river at six feet and crash into a bridge - so there is no event.

 

If I start RAA training then I am under the control of RAA, the RAA instructor has a duty of care to provide training standards and content to ensure my behaviour and skills are safe when flying.

 

If my instructor made a habit of flying me up the local river at low level and under a bridge, and I adopted that standard of behaviour he was not exercising his duty of care.

 

If, some years later as the owner of a GA aircraft on a GA licence I happened to be flying up the river with a friend and hit the bridge, I would be dealt with by CASA.

 

If I had a passenger and that passenger was injured or killed, I might find myself sued for negligence (failing to carry out my duty of care) by the passenger. If his/her legal team's investigators find out that my RAA instructor had shown me how to do it, then the fire comes back up the petrol to the RAA instructor, and the investigators are likely to go further and look for who had the responsibility for managing the Instructor and what Safety Management was in place.

 

It doesn't always happen that way; lawyers will always have their own strategy and sometimes it's not worth suing the population of Australia.

 

It's a little bit like taking a piece of steel and converting it into an aileron hinge - the designed, builder, installer, service, owner all have a duty of care in terms of converting an inert material into a critical flying component.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Product liability legislation applies across the board in Australia Tubz especially when it comes to 'Fitness for purpose' and 'Merchantable quality'. It is just that in Australian courts you must prove actual loss in order to claim compensation. In the US the jury will award compensatory damages and in certain circumstance punitive damages.

Yes that came in as part of the 1974 Trade Practices Act but the Product Liability legislation is something much more sinister to a manufacturer, and will see a lot of vehicle manufacture cease in Australia.......if it still exists by the time of the first case.

 

 

[Cooda]

If I start RAA training then I am under the control of RAA, the RAA instructor has a duty of care to provide training standards and content to ensure my behaviour and skills are safe when flying.

Ergo, if I subsequently fail to fly safely, it's RAA's fault.

 

(Isn't that where Dutchy was coming from?)