Monthly Archives: August 2013

Coalition’s aviation policies revealed

The Coalition has launched a detailed aviation policy that spells out credible remedies for many of the industry’s prime barriers to investment, innovation, and aviation sector competition, and in some cases to simple survival.

The document foreshadows a major external review of Australian aviation safety and regulation, to be undertaken by “a qualified, eminent and experienced member of the international aviation community” whom it has not yet identified. Continue reading

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  • The government’s Aviation Safety Regulation Review is all but complete with ASRR chair David Forsyth confident that his panel’s final report will be in the hands of Minister Warren Truss by its end-of-month target date. Since the review began last December the Panel evaluated over 260 submissions and received input from…
    Tags: aviation, industry
  • The Australian Aviation Associations Forum has welcomed Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester on his reappointment to what he  describes as “this critical ministerial position for Australia’s economy, job creation and the aviation industry.” But the TAAAF’s welcome comes with a continued push for the Minister to steer back onto…
    Tags: aviation, industry
  • Paul Phelan, Oct 9, 2015 After a two-day conference The Australian Aviation Associations Forum (TAAAF), representing an influential group of peak aviation bodies, has released a communiqué expressing “considerable concern” at the slow pace of reform of CASA and the ongoing cost impositions from new regulations. The communiqué urged the…
    Tags: aviation, industry
  • Jeff Boyd  By kind courtesy of Aviation Trader's Tony Shaw and of Jeff Boyd, we're re-publishing Jeff's recent Commentary on the regulatory scene, first published in Aviation Trader's September issue, for the benefit of those who haven't yet seen it. In my 33 years of working in the regional aviation…
    Tags: industry, aviation
  • In its efforts to promote General Aviation, Pro Aviation regards Recreational Aviation as an integral part of the industry. Recreational flying is already the start for many aspiring professional pilots who will go on to make flying their career. This in addition to the thousands of licensed pilots who have…
    Tags: aviation, industry

Truss demands action on Senate Committee’s ATSB/CASA recommendations

Shadow Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss has supported demands from Senator David Fawcett for immediate action on the recommendations of the Senate committee enquiry into CASA and ATSB’s handling of the Pel-Air ditching at Norfolk Island almost four years ago:

“Minister Anthony Albanese must urgently respond to the recommendations flowing from a Senate Committee investigation into a ditched Pel-Air flight off Norfolk Island in November 2009,” Said Mr. Truss.

  Continue reading

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  • May 23, 2013 The nation’s air safety infrastructure is headed for a historic renaissance in the wake of the Senate committee report on aviation accident investigations, released today in the wake of the Pel-Air ditching at Norfolk Island in November 2009. Leading among the committee’s recommendations are the urgent recovery…
    Tags: committee, atsb, safety, casa, investigation, aviation, senate, ditching, pel-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, pilot, aviation
  • 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
  • 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, aviation, safety
  • 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

Far-out aviation – Problem solved

This is one of a mini-series of aviation events in our collection, from which obvious lessons may be learned. They all arrived from various reliable but long-forgotten industry sources and we won’t be doing any analyses or making any comments or recommendations. Names are withheld in some cases where it seems somebody may still have a reputation to protect. Continue reading

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  • Here's a sample comparison between the Australian, USA and New Zealand regulatory styles. The example used here is just one of thousands of regulations. As an example of how much more is yet to be done, two recently-released rule sets have been followed by a cascade of amendments, and the…
    Tags: aircraft
  • Most of Australia's general aviation aircraft fleet was on track to be effectively grounded on Thursday of this week (August 1 2013), if a “maintenance direction" signed off by CASA director John McCormick on July 4 of this year had slipped past industry scrutiny and become law. Estimates of the…
    Tags: aircraft
  • CROSS WIND APPROACHES & LANDINGS There are several “techniques” suggested for cross-wind landings; The least appropriate being making the final approach directly into wind to the threshold and then straightening up at the last moment, to intercept the centreline – great when there are no obstacles and no other traffic.…
    Tags: aircraft, landing

Shooting the messenger – analysis

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 supporting evidence, blanketed the whole event through denial, deferred positive action until it was too late, and sought to blame industry. Continue reading

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  • CASA’s almost-too-late decision to defer its latest rule package came just fifteen days before the scheduled implementation deadline, and with no fanfare at all; just a limited-circulation media release that was repeated on a page on the CASA web site. If you’ve made any business decisions based on the drafts,…
    Tags: casa
  • What this section of our site is about. You only need to check some of our reporting of regulatory affairs up to now. Our articles continue to catch the attention of irate individuals and groups, including some we’ve never even heard of before, and we seem to have become a…
    Tags: casa
  • The office of the Australian Information Commissioner has served notice on CASA under s 54V of the FOI (Freedom of Information) Act, requiring the regulator to re-conduct a previously requested search for documents, and specifying that it "fully document that search." The FOI request had been lodged by Mr Shane…
    Tags: casa
  • Last Sunday we warned that a CASA directive dated July 4 could potentially ground almost the entire GA fleet today (Thursday.) We also reported that CASA had been tipped off to this parlous situation and was taking urgent steps to reverse it. The errors had been picked up by the…
    Tags: casa
  • The topic of CASA and Confidential Reporting is currently the subject of a Senate Inquiry which will report to Parliament by the end of April 2013. This inquiry was initially scheduled to be completed by the end of November 2012, but due to an unexpected amount of input being provided…
    Tags: casa

Election squabbling buries air safety recommendations

Liberal Senator David Fawcett says Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has failed to respond to the damning findings of the Senate Inquiry into the ATSB’s and CASA’s responses to the Norfolk Island ditching on November18 2009.

ATSB today confirmed that there would now be no action on the critical recommendations until after the election.  Continue reading

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  • Delays in the government’s response to a senate committee report that has dumbfounded senators, the aviation industry and the general public are now expected to be resolved within five weeks. Transport Minister Warren Truss anticipates tabling the government’s response to the committee’s recommendations before the Parliament’s current autumn sittings close…
    Tags: government, committee, report, aviation, safety, atsb, senate, investigation, recommendations, review
  • Shadow Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss has supported demands from Senator David Fawcett for immediate action on the recommendations of the Senate committee enquiry into CASA and ATSB’s handling of the Pel-Air ditching at Norfolk Island almost four years ago: “Minister Anthony Albanese must urgently respond to the recommendations flowing from…
    Tags: committee, senate, recommendations, safety, report, aviation, atsb, minister, investigation
  • May 23, 2013 The nation’s air safety infrastructure is headed for a historic renaissance in the wake of the Senate committee report on aviation accident investigations, released today in the wake of the Pel-Air ditching at Norfolk Island in November 2009. Leading among the committee’s recommendations are the urgent recovery…
    Tags: committee, atsb, safety, investigation, aviation, senate
  • Senator David Fawcett’s remarks when formally tabling the “PelAir Report” on June 19 are reviewing the hopes of a beleaguered industry for an improved future. The senator's remarks about the regulatory reform process align closely with what (then Minister) John Sharp put in place in 1996. Mark Vaile, the next…
    Tags: safety, report, aviation, atsb, committee, investigation
  • The government’s Aviation Safety Regulation Review is all but complete with ASRR chair David Forsyth confident that his panel’s final report will be in the hands of Minister Warren Truss by its end-of-month target date. Since the review began last December the Panel evaluated over 260 submissions and received input from…
    Tags: aviation, review, will, safety, report