Hi All, I find Graham's comments interesting, why should we do something like this ourselves when we PAY a large yearly fee to an organisation that is meant to look after safety related issues.
It's amazing how many times I have had descriptions of accident scenarios I have read go thru my head on the flying field and in the air. Not that im saying an accident was in the pipeline at any stage just that some of the settings were in place. The US soaring magazine has a monthly safety column by George Theilen that has raised my awareness of many issues, as have Mike Valentine's many excelent reports in AG(I just finished reading every AG back to 1960!) over the years. It does not matter how old the report is, 3 months or ten years, there is always some lesson I believe. For example, one particular article had a profound effect on me, regarding a fatal mid air between 2 open class ships at at Nationals some years ago, written by one of the pilots. Everytime I pull in to a thermal at high speed I am aware that I could be pulling up in front of someone who is unseen behind me. This article was the first time I had ever heard mention of this kind of issue and made a big impression on me, and I have modified my flying method to hopefully avoid this situation. Never has this scenario been presented to me during training. This is only one of many examples of plans I have developed only because of such reporting. Having a plan to evade dangerous Scenarios is only possible if one is aware of the situations that have been encountered peviously by others.There is no other way, apart from going thru tham yourself. Only helpful IF you susrvive eh. It seems absurd that a club is not REQUIRED to submit accident/incident reports to me,surely this is a if not THE fundemantal duty of those who choose to take a role in OPs administration? Maybe if this is an issue some disciplining of clubs who do not comply is required. Several weeks Suspension of OPS perhaps, that should sort out tardiness and poor reporting quick enough. Regarding the insinuation of voyeurism in this issue, one should not assume everyone has the same motivations for reading such things as one's self perhaps. We managed this in the past why can't we do it now? What do we get for our fees and where does the money go? If the RTO/ops doesn't take care of reports of safety issues and accident/incidents, what on earth does he do? Maybe an RTO/safety is neede to cover this if the current RTO/OPS are too busy with other stuff. Perhaps all clubs should have a safety person who is responsible for this, as is the case at comps. I do appreciate a lot of work is voluntarily undertaken by a relatively small group of people but surely safety comes first? David Lawley Computer Manager Elizabeth Primary School Elizabeth East Prinary School -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Graeme Cant Sent: Wednesday, 22 February 2006 1:03 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Aus-soaring] ACCIDENTS/INCIDENTS 2005 >From: "Geoff Kidd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > However I would still recommend and lobby for the GFA to further >expand on many or all of those, to allow members to gain a further >appreciation of the circumstances of each or most of them. The reason >being that the membership can learn from the mistakes of others and >will give actual factual data more weight. No. Your reason is plain, vulgar curiosity. > What use is it to new and older members to read that description >from >29.12.04 or the description of the accident on 13 May 2005 which states >"Loss of control while landing"? Other than the motherhood lesson >"Don't lose control while landing" & "Don't let your wingtip touch the >ground while turning onto final". > > More details are surely (or sorely) needed, and would benefit all >members. If the reason for this brevity should be that the GFA don't >have more details, then the reporting system needs to be expanded. Well, I for one won't be joining in that expansion. Gliding is not my whole life and I spend more than enough time doing administrative stuff that other people think is needed but which benfits neither gliding as a whole or my club. Even where there is some benefit, the time required to collect data is grossly out of proportion to the benefit gained. In the case of accident and incident reporting, I believe large slabs of many other people's time would be used largely for your personal titillation. You just want a crash comic gossip column. YOU WANT IT. YOU DO IT!! Nobody gets paid for this stuff. I know of NO RTO/Ops who has the time to do it. I know of nobody with genuine qualifications in the area (and I know quite a number) who has the time or inclination to do it. Do you have the faintest idea how many man-days work are involved in investigating the cause of even a "simple" accident if the report is to have any sort of credibility? That's why I say all you want is crash comics. The GFA hasn't anywhere near the resources to produce anything more respectable. You began by saying you would "...lobby for the GFA to...". If you have the energy to lobby, you have the time and energy to do the reporting yourself. YOU WANT IT. YOU DO IT. Send out the forms to all the clubs. Email them every month to make sure they know they should be sending in reports. Keep up the address changes of secretaries so the emails don't go astray. Collate all the reports you get and when you know of incidents you didn't get a report on, phone them and castigate them for laziness! Phone them again two weeks later when they've ignored you. After you've read the reports, send back to the clubs for more information the ones that said "wingtip hit ground in turn onto final" and make them smarten up their reporting and amplify the cause. When (if) you get some better reports back, prepare all the reports for publication and then send them to the magazine on time. Remember it's important that all this is timely. We don't want 3 month old stuff published. Then do it all again. Do it for 10 or 20 years because you think it's important and nobody would take it off you after the 2 years it took you to get sick of doing it. >(2) Am I correct in the reading of these reports of occurrences between >13 Nov 2004 & 19 Nov 2005 that, perhaps with the exception of the >"Canopy opening in flight" incident(s) that none of our Accidents or >Incidents was due to a structural of other failure of an aircraft? Yes. Should we abolish Form 2s? >(3) There are two "Near Miss" incidents that have been reported. Do you >think there might actually be more than that? Yes, I do. Because a fair amount has been published on that precise topic and that's what the research shows. Why don't you Google a few of the papers, read them, collate them into a form suitable for publishing in SA, get the authors' permission for your abridgement of their work, ask the GFA for money to pay the copyright fees and then publish a brilliant article in SA. I'm sure you've got more in you than just whinging in email groups. By the way: If more near misses were reported and publicised as you apparently wish, all that would happen would be that CASA would drastically curtail our operating areas (small glider danger areas would be declared in about a dozen locations and gliding anywhere else would be prohibited). CASA would not accept the risk we pose to other traffic in the way we currently operate if they really understood what goes on. Weren't we having a discussion about why people leave gliding? Graeme Cant >Regards Geoff >_______________________________________________ >Aus-soaring mailing list >[email protected] >To check or change subscription details, visit: >http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
