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Father demands aviation regulator CASA 'get off its butt' after second fatal Angel Flight crash

7.30
By Angelique Donnellan

Tue 25 Jul 2017, 10:10pm         
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Video: Father demands safety be improved after second fatal Angel Flight crash (7.30)

A man left devastated after his wife and daughter were killed in an Angel Flight crash in 2011 is demanding safety be improved after a second fatal Angel Flight accident last month.

Key points:

• Angel Flight co-ordinates free flights for country patients for non-emergency medical treatment
  
• Two fatal crashes involving Angel Flight journeys in the last 6 years
  
• Charity's flights not covered by CASA's commercial regulations because they are private
  
• Father of girl killed in an Angel Flight crash calls for consistent regulation of charity flights
  

Len Twigg said the latest crash had brought back horrible memories of when his wife Julie and 15-year-old daughter Jacinda died six years ago.

Jacinda Twigg was being treated for juvenile arthritis in Melbourne but on a return Angel Flight to Nhill, in country Victoria, the plane came down.

Pilot Don Kernot also died.

An investigation found low cloud, rain and fading light made the pilot disorientated and lose control.

"I was diagnosed with PTSD pretty early on, severe depression," Mr Twigg told 7.30.

"I can understand why some people would choose not to be here anymore, how they couldn't deal with it, but I've got three other beautiful kids and I wouldn't do that to them."
Photo: Jacinda and Julie Twigg in Melbourne just before they boarded the doomed Angel Flight in 2011 (Supplied: Len Twigg)

Mr Twigg could not believe it when he heard that another Angel Flight had crashed in South Australia's south-east last month.

Emily Redding, 16, her 43-year-old mother Tracy and volunteer pilot Grant Gilbert all died.

Emily had anorexia and was using Angel Flight to get to a medical appointment in Adelaide.

"It certainly rekindled everything," Mr Twigg said.

"Then I saw the photos and I saw the photo of the mum and the daughter and the first thing I thought of was, 'Oh, my God, she's a redhead too.' How can that be possible?"
"[It] shouldn't happen once. It certainly shouldn't happen twice."

A preliminary investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has found the plane crashed just over a minute after take-off and hit the ground almost vertically.
'CASA needs to get off its butt'

Photo: Jacinda and Julie Twigg died when their Angel Flight crashed near Horsham in 2011. (ABC News)

Angel Flight is a much loved service for regional communities and last year organised more than 3,000 flights for free to city medical appointments.

But it is not an aviation organisation which means journeys are taken as private flights.
The charity merely organises the trips by connecting patients with pilots who volunteer their time and their planes. Different safety standards apply when compared with commercial passenger flights.

Mr Twigg said the charity flight sector needed to be regulated.

"Angel Flight, it's a fantastic organisation, don't get me wrong, it is the best organisation and they do so much for so many people," he said.

"But how can they not be responsible for this?

"CASA (the Civil Aviation Safety Authority) needs to seriously get off its butt and do something. There has to be stricter guidelines.

"Angel Flight cannot just sign someone up just because they put their hand up and they've got an aeroplane and they're prepared to pay the fuel and volunteer their time; they have to be scrutineered."

Angel Flight declined an interview but said responsibility for its volunteer pilots rested with CASA.

Angel Flight chief executive officer Marjorie Pagani stated the charity, in facilitating private flights by volunteers, "relies wholly upon CASA's licensing, checking and training role, and the authorisations it issues to pilots".

In 2014 CASA tried to change the way charity flights operate. It proposed they become more directly responsible for pilots, their training and proficiency.

CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said the proposal was shelved in the face of opposition, including from Angel Flight, which said the changes would be too costly.

"We had in excess of 60-odd submissions to the discussion and overwhelmingly they were against any change," he told 7.30.

But he concedes the latest accident has forced a rethink.

"We don't have the accident investigation report in front of us, that has collected all the data from that accident, done the analysis, looked at all the causal factors," he said.

"When we've all got that, if someone can look at that and say, 'CASA you're at fault', then OK, that'll be a fair discussion to have."

'I got $40,000. That's all my wife and daughter were worth'

Photo: Len Twigg (centre), with his other children Jess (left), and Michael Twigg (right). (ABC News: Angelique Donnellan)

Mr Twigg pursued compensation over his wife and daughter's deaths but said the legal battle caused him more trauma.

As the flight was classed as a private journey, the only claim Mr Twigg could pursue was through the pilot's insurer.

"The insurance policy was worded that if you survived the accident you had a claim, if you were struck by a piece of the aeroplane at the accident site you had a claim, but as a third party there was nothing," he said.

"In the end I got $40,000. That's all my wife and daughter were worth."

He offered this advice to the family left devastated by the latest Angel Flight crash.
"First thing to do, get in touch with a lawyer and caveat everything of the pilots, everything he owns, so it can't be sold," he said.

"If someone had said that to me I would have said, 'don't be stupid, why would I want to do that?'

"Do it. You can't not think of yourself, you have to think of you, your family, your kids and the future."

MTF...P2