CASA ....Check this ...what a KlusterF**

[Kyle Communications]

CASA   the video says it all...watch the lot

 

 

[Flightrite]

Ya gotta remember it’s Australia, a nation known for corruption at ALL levels! 
CASA has always been a ‘jobs for the boys club’, a culture hiding behind the protection of multiple layers of bureaucracy and impenetrable as we have seen over many enquires! This is just another smoke screen! 

 

[Kyle Communications]

The senators certainly didnt hold back for a change.

 

[turboplanner]

Pity we didn't get to see what the offence was.

 

[facthunter]

Some of the questions were pretty dumb but you can see the  hard line take it or leave it attitude. pilots still flying are criminals we just haven't caught up with yet  There WAS a time when the CASA (or equivalent ) had proficient Pilots among it's staff.. Nev

[turboplanner]

38 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Some of the questions were pretty dumb but you can see the  hard line take it or leave it attitude. pilots still flying are criminals we just haven't caught up with yet  There WAS a time when the CASA (or equivalent ) had proficient Pilots among it's staff.. Nev

Well we didn't get to hear which offence he committed; it was implied he had forgotten to get his medical so he did the right thing and hired a Commercial pilot presumably for a commercial activity but that was about as far as we got. 

The Senators sing the CASA dissidents song we all know with gusto on behalf of the electorate, the CEO was seen to have been given a flogging based on the well repeated dissidents claims, but we never got to the actual offence which may have been aircraft or operations based. The CEO has undertaken to come back with answers to the Senators questions and hopefully that will shed some light on "the other side of the story" which was mentioned several times.

It might be a different story if this operator has taken business off an other operator playing by the rules; there are always surprises.

[Kieran17]

CEO mentioned that "there's always the Mercy Flight Provisions", however these have been removed from AIP as 'there's no legislative base for them', so no, there are not Mercy Flight provisions available to be used anymore.

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

It isn't any wonder that CASA has the worst reputation of any Civil Aviation Authority anywhere in the world. Susan McDonald and the other Senators expressed the same disbelief of CASA's attitude and lack of real understanding as most of the Aviation Industry and almost all GA & RA pilots. The culture of safety for safety's sake, an absolute black and white reliance on ridiculous regulations depending on the colour of the paint on the aircraft and the occupation of the passengers etc  and not one based on evidence and a desire to work with Industry was clearly evident.

 

They keep on harping about working with FAA in the US. Well that is just a crock. CASA needs to be completely disbanded and a totally new approach made with new people from within the Industry and Aviation community. The culture is so ingrained that no-one has been able to make any inroads since well before Dick Smith tried to engender change. There is too much legal speak, over regulation and fear of litigation resulting in masses of unnecessary delays in making decisions on anything.

 

Here is a simple example.

 

In 2005 FAA USA, CAA UK, CAA Canada & CAA NZ all implemented the RPL. It took around 3 months to investigate and publish the notice of rule change to allow older pilots that may not be able to pass a class 2 medical to continue to fly their Cessna or Piper with just a motor vehicle medical check, albeit with only 1 passenger and not at night. Modifications have been implemented since but that's OK. The UK went even further to remove the medical all together to an RAA style self certification for pilots under 70 for UK PPL holders.

 

It took CASA TEN MORE YEARS to come up with an RPL different to everywhere else in the English speaking world and it is not recognised anywhere else in the English speaking world. How timely and smart was that, NOT?

[Flightrite]

Unbelievably there are pilots out there who support CASA!! Believe they are doing a good job!!!

I was fortunate  that me 3 offspring (ones I know of😂) were never interested in aviation as a career, I was spared as they were!

[kgwilson]

I haven't met any CASA supporters yet. I was quite surprised at the anti CASA sentiment when I first came across the ditch but it didn't take long to realise why and change my perspective. I've met a few nice people who work for CASA but they are not the managers and decision makers. CASA's culture is toxic & it needs to be lanced to the point of death. No director has ever managed any inroads so the only option is a complete overhaul with multiple sackings & redundancies. While GA has shrunk by 40% or more CASA staff levels increased by 60% or more.

 

Anyone remember the Forsyth report of May 2014. 37 recommendations for change with none implemented fully & most not at all. The same issues raised at the Senate hearing (as well as many more) were detailed in the report now swept conveniently under the carpet as always.

[Geoff_H]

The thing that surprised me was the response about Blackhawk aircraft from CASA.  I was told, by a helicopter rebuild place, was that the reason that any aircraft that has been in a war zone cannot carry passengers because there was no certainty as to maintenance or out of boundary stresses from abnormal flying.  Maybe I was not told the facts, but the CASA management seemed to not have a clue as to what CASA was actually doing.  No real surprises for me.  The medical guy was on the ball though.  Maybe he should head CASA.

[Garfly]

Not much has changed since this 4 Corners report .... (for the summing up start around 37:00)

 

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/ditched---promo/6334712

[Flightrite]

I recall that event very well, it was discussed at length in our Co. 
The law’s an ass!

Edited February 15, 2022 by Flightrite

[turboplanner]

11 hours ago, Garfly said:

Not much has changed since this 4 Corners report .... (for the summing up start around 37:00)

 

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/ditched---promo/6334712

Just looking at the Four Corners report:

This is not about CASA.

It's also not really about ATSB; on the one hand the ditching was a fuel exhaustion for which the PIC is responsible; on the other hand the PIC was following company procedures, something which may have been sorted out already.

 

The Airline Company's Insurers accepted liability under Australian PL law, but capped it at physical Injuries due to the Montreal Convention applying to the location, and the Monteal Convention precludes a claim for pyschological injury.

 

The report covers the Commonwealth Government's extension of the Montreal Convention to include Australian domestic airline passengers, and Nick Xenophone was going to move an Amendment to the Act to reverse the government extension to take it back to offshore only. I haven't checked to see whether he was successful, but hope he was.

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by turboplanner

[Garfly]

turboplanner (above) said:

 

"Just looking at the Four Corners report:

This is not about CASA.  It's also not really about ATSB ...."

 

Well it turned out to be very much about CASA and its little mate, the ATSB.

The controversy led to the Senate Report "Aviation accident investigations" of May 2013

(It showed what can happen when good journalism and good governance work together.)

 

From Chapter 4 • page 48: 

 

"Did CASA and the ATSB collude?

4.63 Documentation made available to the committee raises questions about the level of influence CASA may have had during the ATSB investigation. It is clear that the ATSB Chief Commissioner, Mr Martin Dolan, knew that CASA did not  support a broad systems approach to the inquiry despite earlier indications to the contrary from Mr John McCormick, head of CASA.  Furthermore, early in the investigation there appears to have been cross checking of the CASA investigation report with the ATSB draft to ensure they were consistent. In addition, at least one high level meeting was supposed to have occurred between the two agencies on the safety issue but was not minuted. The committee is also aware that both the ATSB's General Manager, Mr Ian Sangston, and Chief Commissioner Dolan personally reviewed the report draft. ATSB documents provided to the committee indicate that an evidence table was reworked in order to reflect Mr Sangston's final assessments that the identified safety matters were 'minor safety issues'. "

 

 

From the Executive Summary • page xx

 

"The committee also focuses on the appropriateness and effectiveness of the interaction between the ATSB and CASA. The committee notes that a systemic approach to the investigation was initially pursued, but that systemic issues were scoped out of the investigation early in the process. This led the committee to ask whether CASA exerted undue influence on the ATSB process.

 

What is clear is that CASA's failure to provide the ATSB with critical documents, including the Chambers Report and CASA’s Special Audit of Pel-Air, which both demonstrated CASA’s failure to properly oversee the Pel-Air operations, contravened the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in place between the two agencies and may have breached the terms of the Transport Safety Investigations Act 2003 (Chapter 7).

 

The committee takes a dim view of CASA's actions in this regard. The survival of all six people on board VH-NGA means that a lot went right—this should result in lessons for the wider industry, particularly operators flying to remote locations. At the same time, many things could have worked better, and industry should also learn from these.  Many submitters and witnesses asserted that the ATSB's report is not balanced and includes scant coverage of contributing systemic factors such as organisational and regulatory issues, human factors and survivability aspects. Given the ATSB's central role in improving aviation safety by communicating lessons learned from aviation accidents, the committee is surprised by the agency's near exclusive focus on the actions of the pilot and lack of analysis or detail of factors that would assist the wider aviation industry.

 

The committee notes warnings that the omission or downgrading of important safety information has the potential to adversely affect aviation safety. The committee was understandably troubled by allegations that agencies whose role it is to protect and enhance aviation safety were acting in ways which could compromise that safety. It therefore resolved to take all appropriate action to investigate these allegations in order to assure itself, the industry and the travelling public that processes currently in place in CASA and the ATSB are working effectively."    //

 

From the List of Recommendations:

 

"Recommendation 11 6.52   The committee recommends that CASA processes in relation to matters highlighted by this investigation be reviewed. This could involve an evaluation benchmarked against a credible peer (such as FAA or CAA) of regulation and audits with respect to: non-RPT passenger carrying operations; approach to audits; and training and standardisation of FOI across regional offices."

 

"Recommendation 14 7.15   The committee recommends that the ATSB-CASA Memorandum of Understanding be re-drafted to remove any ambiguity in relation to information that should be shared between the agencies in relation to aviation accident investigations, to require CASA to: • advise the ATSB of the initiation of any action, audit or review as a result of an accident which the ATSB is investigating. • provide the ATSB with the relevant review report as soon as it is available."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Garfly

[turboplanner]

22 minutes ago, Garfly said:

Well it turned out to be very much about CASA and its little mate, the ATSB.

 

The Four Corners video was March 23, 2015 - which reported Pel - Air accepted Liability

Dr Helm was awarded $959, 479 on July 1, 2015

Karen Casey ws awarded $515,173 by the Supreme Court of NSW on March 11, 2016

 

 

 

[Garfly]

12 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

The Four Corners video was March 23, 2015 - which reported Pel - Air accepted Liability

Dr Helm was awarded $959, 479 on July 1, 2015

Karen Casey ws awarded $515,173 by the Supreme Court of NSW on March 11, 2016

 

The original 4 Corners was aired in Sep 2012.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/crash-landing/4242482

 

But why obsess about legal-technical issues regarding liability and monetary compensation?

 

We're talking about CASA/ATSB here and about bad governance and bureaucratic corruption, as was was Four Corners and Nick Xenophon.

 

 

From Aviation Safety Network

https://news.aviation-safety.net/2013/06/02/atsb-and-casa-criticised-by-australian-senate-committee/

 

An Australian Senate Committee inquiry criticised the Australian aviation regulator CASA as well as Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on their role in a 2009 accident investigation.

The Senate Committee on Aviation accident investigations was initiated in the wake of an accident involving the ditching of a medical evacuation IAI Westwind jet in November 2009.
The airplane was en route from Apia, Samoa to Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean. Headwind was greater than expected and the weather conditions at Norfolk Island deteriorated. The crew had increasing concerns about their fuel reserves but did not divert to an alternate airport. Following four missed approaches to Norfolk Airport in poor weather, the pilot ditched the plane close to the shore. All six on board were rescued.
ATSB concluded that the pilot of the accident flight amongst others “did not plan the flight in accordance with the existing regulatory and operator requirements”.

An episode of the Australian current affairs tv programme Four Corners indicated that there were inconsistencies between the ATSB investigation report and a Special Audit from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority into the operator of the medevac jet.
In September 2012, Independent Senator for South Australia, Nick Xenophon, successfully called for the establishment of a Senate inquiry. The committee’s objective was to find out why the pilot became the last line of defence and to maximise the safety outcomes of future ATSB and Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) investigations in the interests of the travelling public.

Many submitters and witnesses in the inquiry asserted that the ATSB’s report was not balanced and included scant coverage of contributing systemic factors such as organisational and regulatory issues, human factors and survivability aspects.
The Committee stated that CASA failed to provide the ATSB with critical audit documents regarding the operator of the airplane. These documents “demonstrated CASA’s failure to properly oversee the Pel-Air operations,” according to the Committee.
Parts of the ATSB investigation process lacked transparency, objectivity and due process. The committee finds that the ATSB’s subjective investigative processes were driven in part by ministerial guidance prioritising high capacity public transport operations over other types of aviation transport.

The inquiry has made 26 recommendations, including redrafting the information sharing agreement between CASA and the ATSB, and re-opening the Pel Air inquiry.

 

[turboplanner]

7 minutes ago, Garfly said:

The original 4 Corners was aired in Sep 2012.

But why obsess about legal-technical issues regarding liability and monetary compensation?

 

You posted the March 23 2015 Four Corners, so I addressed that one.

By then the liability had been decided as Pel-Air, as against CASA or ATSB or a combination, but Pel-Air was not prepared to pay for Pyschological damage due to the Montreal Convention and Senator Xenophon was going to move an Amendment to try to get that reversed.

 

I've attached a copy of the 176 page Senate Rural & Regional Affairs & Transport References Committee report of May 2013.

Maybe there were catfights - that's normal in big organisations, and maybe they tried to get a common report which is also usual in big organisations, and maybe the Senators felt that some lines were crossed but neither CASA nor ATSB were judged by the Supreme Court to have breached their duty of care two years later after all that dust had settled, or we would have seen them mentioned.

 

What we do know from the later Four Corners was that Senator Xenaphon, who was a member of the Comittee was, two years later focusing on getting the Montreal Convention removed from Australian domestic air travel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WX00189.pdf

[Garfly]

The Senate committee concluded that CASA were trying to get ATSB to cover up their own systemic incompetence which was a contributing factor to the original accident.  But for whatever reason you want to let them off the hook.  Fine.  But that's not how progress is made.

[facthunter]

The Investigative Body is supposed to be independent of the CASA (and the Government and the church). and any Investigation must include what effect CASA's actions or rules Played. FULL STOP. Nev

[turboplanner]

10 minutes ago, Garfly said:

The Senate committee concluded that CASA were trying to get ATSB to cover up their own systemic incompetence which was a contributing factor to the original accident.  But for whatever reason you want to let them off the hook.  Fine.  But that's not how progress is made.

Not at all, I just commented on what was there. The judgement relating to the accident is on the record.

[Flightrite]

Garfly you are wasting yr time there mate!👍Most don’t support CASA and any of their stooges one iota in any capacity!

Edited February 15, 2022 by Flightrite

[Garfly]

20 hours ago, Kieran17 said:

CEO mentioned that "there's always the Mercy Flight Provisions", however these have been removed from AIP as 'there's no legislative base for them', so no, there are not Mercy Flight provisions available to be used anymore.

https://vfrg.casa.gov.au/emergency-procedures/mercy-flights/

Mercy flight declaration AIP ENR 1.1

When an urgent medical, flood or fire relief or evacuation flight is proposed in order to retrieve a person from grave and imminent danger and failure to do so is likely to result in loss of life or serious or permanent disability and the flight will involve irregular operations, a mercy flight must be declared.

A mercy flight must only be declared by the pilot in command and the factors/risks that the pilot in command must consider in the declaration, commencement and continuation of the flight are detailed in AIP ENR 1.1.

 

This is still up on the CASA website.  Can you give more details about this provision being removed, Keiran?

[RossK]

51 minutes ago, Flightrite said:

Garfly you are wasting yr time there mate!👍Most don’t support CASA and any of their stooges one iota in any capacity!

I pretty sure we have one member of this forum who does support the CASA when you read what they have posted 

[Garfly]

Ideally, we should all be supporting CASA.  We can easily believe CEO Pip Spence about the many people in the organisation who are totally dedicated to doing their best for all stakeholders in Australian aviation.  And we can be pleased - grateful, even - for all the good things achieved by them. 

 

In fact, committee Chair, Senator Susan McDonald, despite her fury with CASA, told the CEO  "I respect you enormously ... you're doing a terrific job"  but she went on to say that Spence had "taken on a very difficult role" in trying to fix the many "bad things" the committee was hearing about CASA, "cultural things".

 

She went on to talk about that particular aviation business that had been "incredibly poorly treated, under the name of regulation and safety by bureaucrats in Canberra who just don't care".  That treatment came down to gestapo like enforcement measures including the use of ex-cops to intimidate individuals connected to the operator concerned.  That's the exact same culture that, a decade ago, had them putting all the blame for the Pel-Air accident onto the pilot and away from their own systemic faults. That's why I say not much has changed, despite the best efforts of journalists and that same committee over many years.  That's one side of the 'bad culture'.  

 

The other side is what Independent Senator Rex Patrick, in the video, calls  "legal fettering by CASA" as a result of their inability to see "the whole picture [being] focussed solely on 'my set of rules' "   Or as Senator McDonald puts it to them, "these safety provisions have become molasses around your feet".  

 

Yes, it is somewhat heartening to see that the Senate Committee is still banging away at it (notwithstanding some weird questions, especially from Senator Roberts) but it's also hard to see a way forward against the entrenched bad angels of bureaucracy when they never really face the consequences of their unjust actions.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2022 by Garfly