At 10:34 AM 10/03/04 +1100, Mike Cleaver wrote:
>
>At 00:08 10-03-04 +1100, Peter C wrote:
>
>> > [quoting Mike Borgelt]
>> > I still haven't seen a full public report on the mid air and bailout at
>> > Narromine over two years ago. Any major accident should be treated the
>same
>> > as a fatality as it is only luck that separates them.
>> >
>> >
>>
>>But who sees the reports ? I get the impression that most are kept pretty
>>close
>>to the chest, only for a few, which sort of defeats the "so others may
>learn"
>>bit.
>
>Unfortunately, you are unlikely ever to see the "full and public report"
>for the following reasons:
>
>The ONLY lawful authority to investigate and publish accident reports at
>the time of that accident was the Australian Transport Safety
>Bureau. Their attitude towards sport aviation accidents is "these people
>are not the Australian travelling public, and we have nothing to learn for
>Joe Public from a glider accident. Government policy is to only spend
>taxpayers' money on investigations with a large benefit to the public, or
>where a fatal accident occurs to an airline or charter operator."
I have no problem with *no* public money being spent on glider accident
investigation even though the results may contain valuable lessons for the
rest of aviation regarding training/operations/judgement etc. The
government attitude should be welcomed by all sports aviators. It is a
recognition that our activities generally pose no significant threat to
innocent third parties on the ground. As such it greatly weakens any case
for regulation.
Given that the GFA did investigate the Narromine accident and presumably
spent GFA funds so doing it is reasonable to ask "where is the report?".
Does Wombat imply that the GFA acted unlawfully by doing this investigation
and report?
What nonsense.
Does the act prevent the GFA from investigating? - I don't think so. It may
mean that the GFA is without the protection and legal powers of the act
which would put it on the same basis as media reporters who investigate all
sorts of things all the time and publish the results, which seems to have
escaped Wombat's notice.
Does anyone else find it strange that a CASA employee who has been employed
in CASA's Sports Aviation section publicly defends the GFA's inaction?
After all, if you want to regulate gliding and set training and operational
standards you surely must have a system in place to investigate failures.
I'd think you actually have a common law duty of care to do so and failure
to investigate or take action to acquire necessary legal sanction to do so
could be seen as a failure to exercise this duty of care with possible
interesting personal consequences for all involved down to the club
instructor level. Note that most aviation operational organisations have
their own incident/accident/safety sections in addition to any government
body. It is the usual practice.
>It is not necessarily the fault of ATSB staff, nor CASA (who have no
>influence over our independent accident investigators) - it is a fault
>of a Government policy dictated by economic rationalists like a certain
>public figure who has gone very quiet since his pet airspace scheme has
>been shown to be full of flaws in both the technical detail and the
>implementation. (Despite Mike B's fervour for it).
See above re public funds being spent.
I note the almost obligatory swipe at Dick Smith. Anyone who upsets the
minions of the regulator and the unions that much, must be doing something
right. It is laughable that grey bureaucrats who plod away and never
produce anything of value should criticise energetic and successful people
like Dick.
I see your boss Bruce Byron has gone public and said there is nothing much
wrong with the NAS that a little more education won't fix. He might have to
institute a literacy program for pilots and controllers unless they produce
the educational material as cartoons. Sixty years of "start engine, switch
off brain and blindly follow the rules" may take a while to correct.
e>
>The GFA has no legal power to investigate accidents - or at least, it had
>none whatever when this accident happened,
You mean they couldn't just write this into the MOSP?
and quite justifiably believes
>that any report it may produce (or any report of subsequent accidents where
>it may have the legal right to investigate as a lower priority to ATSB)
They still aren't sure if they have the right?
>will be seen by the public as being subject to a serious conflict of
>interest and a public perception - however wrong this may be - that any GFA
>investigation will be aimed at protecting those in the GFA who may possibly
>bear some ":responsibility" for any failure that may have led to the
>accident. [Such a concept of "blame" is quite out of place in a modern
>accident investigation - they are intended to be carried out for the sole
>purpose of identifying risks that may be avoided in future to prevent a
>recurrence of the accident.]
Well, you are the one who brought this last up.
Imagine anyone thinking that!
They might even seek to protect those in CASA who gave the GFA its delegation!
A little earlier you were seeking to deflect "blame" from the regulator.
That is a consequence of the screwed up structure of aviation regulation in
this country.
>
>The question of accident and incident investigation arose in our
>discussions on the future regulation of sport & recreational aviation, but
>somehow, the cost of investigating accidents needs to be found. Accident
>investigators do not grow on trees, and there is a cost incurred in doing
>any investigation, especially one that is going to be both thorough and
>impartial.
>
>Whilst we might want to have glider pilots investigate, we might also want
>to write and support professional accident investigators carry out this
>task for the safety benefit of us all.
For heaven's sakes. The GFA receives hundreds of thousand of dollars a year
and has $1,000,000 or so in the bank when I last heard. They can't spend
the money on accident investigation/safety as a priority? The whole point
of any "regulation" of the activity is safety.
There is heaps of engineering and scientific talent amongst glider pilots,
it just requires the will to use it. I'm sure suitably qualified people
would come forward as accident investigators and as they would have no
official capacity in the GFA (previous official capacity should be a
disqualifier - including instructor ratings) there would be no conflict of
interest.
Instead of CASA giving money to the GFA they could give it to this body,
that would fund it.
Alternatively make the CASA sports aviation people redundant and you have
plenty of money to properly fund glider accident investigation. Likely it
would be a far better use for the money.
I'd have a lot more confidence in this than the ATSB investigating. The
last few reports fom the ATSB that I've seen seem to be of limited utility
similar to the nonsense about the alleged "near miss" near Launceston.
For Mark Newton and Peter Creswick:
Informal "off the record" discussions inevitably lead to rumour and
innuendo and may indeed give people a totally wrong impression of what
happened. I've encountered this from personal knowledge of certain
incidents. There is no substitute for a proper written report covering the
objective facts with opportunity for public comment at the draft stage.
This will help prevent misinterpretations of the data becoming the accepted
record.
Gliding is very small and there is effectively no anonymity. Why is it
acceptable to talk about what happened but not write it?
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments
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