Monthly Archives: April 2013

A skilfully mismanaged stuffup

“CASA will do all it can to ensure that a person whose licence, certificate or authority is suspended or cancelled has ready access to full external merits review in the AAT. Once before the AAT, CASA will conduct itself as a model litigant.” CASA, in a document entitled: A new approach to enforcement. March, 1989.

“Anyone other than Dick Smith who joins CASA, becomes ‘infallible'”– Dick Smith, August 1998.

“That’s the way the system works. They think: ‘We are powerful and we are totally unaccountable.'” – Dick Smith, August 1998.

When he made those comments, Dick Smith had already found the battle against authoritarian, intransigent and what he sometimes called ‘incompetent’ bureaucracy, tougher going than he had anticipated. But at that time events in the Torres Strait had already shown how much further there was to go. This incident was not Continue reading

Related Posts

  • Paul Phelan, June 1, 2015 In a comprehensive rejection of CASA’s decision to cancel a WA private pilot’s licence Administrative Appeals Tribunal Senior Member Egon Fice has bluntly told the authority: “The decision under review is set aside. The Applicant’s Private Pilot (Aeroplane) Licence and Student Pilot Licence remain valid…
    Tags: casa, aat
  • A chain of events that competent, responsive and honest management could clearly have prevented, ended in the grounding of about 65% of Australia's general aviation fleet in December 1999; most of them for almost four months. In-house Civil Aviation Safety Authority documents show that CASA ignored important industry input and…
    Tags: casa
  • Regulation of Australian General Aviation and Low Capacity Airline Transport Volume 1: Enforcement - Why is it failing? Paul D Phelan September, 2000 The original version of this analysis was circulated electronically to all members of Federal Parliament, industry identities, aviation writers, other selected media outlets, industry associations, CASA Board…
    Tags: casa, air
  • Submission to Aviation Safety Regulation Review ProAviation, updated February 21, 2014 Index We havn't been able to make the automated index function work in this post. Following are the principal headings in the correct sequence. We're working on a fix for that. Meanwhile the ten case studies which were part…
    Tags: casa
  • Trust restoration checklist An impressive number of industry’s elder statesmen attended the rally at Tamworth on May 6, and witnessed the growing concern that only deeds, not words, can set aviation back on the long track towards a restoration of some of the mutual trust that has been squandered over…
    Tags: casa

Day of reckoning for Albanese

Archerfield Airport’s well-organised and determined tenant group has launched a high-profile legal challenge seeking reversal of a decision by Infrastructure & Transport Minister Anthony Albanese’s on 24 May 2012 to approve the Archerfield Airport Corporation’s (AAC) Master Plan, submitted just 17 days earlier on May 7. Continue reading

Related Posts

  • Saving your airport If your airport is at risk of being transformed into an industrial real estate venture that limits aviation operations, the you should be aware of the following letter from Archerfield Airport Chamber of Commerce Inc Lindsay Snell. The situation currently being contested by Archerfield users might very…
    Tags: airport, archerfield, aviation, master, plan
  • In an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing commenced this week, the Archerfield Chamber of Commerce (ACC) Inc. is seeking an AAT finding to set aside a Ministerial Decision of former Transport Minister Anthony Albanese in May 2012, which approved the Archerfield Airport 2011-2031 master plan. The hearing commenced in Brisbane yesterday…
    Tags: airport, aviation, airports, archerfield

Rescue chopper crash, no casualties

A crew of three walked away unhurt when a twin-engined Bell 412 rescue helicopter crashed at about 8pm last night on Prince of Wales Island in the Torres Straits while on a training flight practicing “Night Sun” (airborne floodlight) approaches. Prince of Wales is a large but mostly uninhabited island to the south of Thursday Island. The crew was picked up by the Customs chopper flown by Craig Peters, but the aircraft is expected to be a write-off but as yet no other details are available.

Paul Phelan

April 6, 2013

Note: This is an updated version of an article that first appeared in AviationAdvertiser in October 2010.

Reform of aviation regulation in Australia is further from becoming a reality than it has ever been since the need was first acknowledged and addressed 24 years ago. That is the collective view of senior industry figures who have been involved in the process almost since its inception. Continue reading

Related Posts

  • The failure of CASA’s regulatory review program (RRP) to deliver on expectations has many contributory factors, and an understanding of its sad history is going to be essential if the program is to be prevented from evolving from a stalled project into a high-cost self-perpetuating industry. Failure? Yes, failure. You…
    Tags: aviation, safety, casa, regulations, regulatory, regulation, will, standards
  • Comment - Paul Phelan, April 24 Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss has provided an interim Statement of Expectations to the not-quite-finalised CASA Board, effective until June 30, 2017. A ring-around industry sources found everybody frankly pretty cheerless about the apparent lack of any urgency on some of…
    Tags: casa, aviation, safety, will, industry
  • Regulation of Australian General Aviation and Low Capacity Airline Transport Volume 1: Enforcement - Why is it failing? Paul D Phelan September, 2000 The original version of this analysis was circulated electronically to all members of Federal Parliament, industry identities, aviation writers, other selected media outlets, industry associations, CASA Board…
    Tags: casa, safety, aviation
  • An impressive number of industry’s elder statesmen attended the rally at Tamworth on May 6, and witnessed the growing concern that only deeds, not words, can set aviation back on the long track towards a restoration of some of the mutual trust that has been squandered over the past 26…
    Tags: casa, aviation, will, safety, industry
  • Submission to Aviation Safety Regulation Review ProAviation, updated February 21, 2014 Index We havn't been able to make the automated index function work in this post. Following are the principal headings in the correct sequence. We're working on a fix for that. Meanwhile the ten case studies which were part…
    Tags: casa, aviation, industry