[Peetwo]

Near miss, and attempt to shoot the messenger, add to doubts about ATSB performance
The ATSB is there to make flying safer in Australia, not to bury or avoid matters that may embarrass the airlines and their regulator and air traffic services provider
Ben Sandilands
A Jetstar A320 similar to the one involved in the Gold Coast incident

Perspective
If Australia had an ATSB air crash investigator with the resources and courage to promptly deal with pressing incidents that exposed the public to severe dangers, our skies would be much safer.

The most recent example is reported in this Sydney Morning Herald account of an arriving Jetstar A320 and a departing AirAsia X A330 coming within 152 metres of each other close to the Gold Coast airport on July 21.

That specified lack of separation could not be independently confirmed earlier today, but the triggering of traffic collision avoidance system or TCAS  resolution advisory warnings in both airliners with a combined count of more than 520 seats near a high profile Australian airport demands more than an ATSB estimate of an inquiry report being issued by July 2017.

The quotes from a Jetstar spokesman in the media report make the official notification from the ATSB look like part of its apparent policy of downplaying all incidents that could have ended in major loss of life.

Does the ATSB really expect that public interest to be served by not identifying, very early, whether the airliners were directed to fly towards each other in such a dangerous manner, or whether instructions were not followed by one of the aircraft?  Or indeed, if some additional unexpected factor contributed to the situation? These questions could and should be answered in an interim or preliminary report no later than 30 days after the occurrence of such an incident.

Delays in reports, and downplaying of their importance, have become characteristic of the ATSB for at least nine years, after it failed to pursue a situation where a REX turboprop was flown almost all the way from Wagga Wagga to Sydney on a single engine, with passengers onboard.

The Pel-Air crash of 2009 led to the issuing of a totally discredited and subsequently withdrawn report into the ditching near Norfolk Island of a corporate jet performing a medical flight. Despite scathing Senate Committee findings into that scandal, which involved evidence of the covering up of failed regulatory oversight by CASA, and a damning independent review of the ATSB by its Canadian counterpart, and a direction by Government to conduct a fresh inquiry, Pel-Air is still a crash without a final investigative report.

The ATSB attitude to the directions of government is something like waiting for hell to freeze over.

More recently the ATSB issued a Correcting the Record attack on a Sydney Morning Herald account of the failure of Virgin Australia to keep track of the safe operations of one of its turbo-prop ATRs. (Scroll down on the above link to find the offending entry.)
While the Sydney Morning Herald seems happy to hang the author of a totally fair and accurate report out to dry,  the ATSB response is unacceptable, and avoids the core issue in the article by Aubrey Martin. Like numerous posts in Plane Talking before, Mr Martin points out that an Australian registered turbo-prop, with 68 passenger seats, was allowed to fly 13 sectors over five days following damage to its tail, before Virgin Australia discovered that it was so badly bent it had to be grounded at Albury.

It was nothing but luck that stopped Virgin Australia killing dozens of passengers through a failure to ensure the safe operational conditions of part of its fleet. This failure of oversight by the carrier would have been reason to suspend the regional turbo-prop arm of the airline by CASA, and shouts for a need for urgent attention by the ATSB.

No such action has been taken, adding to legitimate concerns that Australia has second world standards when it comes to the public administration of air safety.

Seen from outside, the ATSB is under resourced. It is also more than three years since the ATSB began inquiring into the circumstances which caused a Qantas and a Virgin Australia 737 to land in dense fog at Mildura with very little remaining fuel reserves when both had originally intended to complete flights to Adelaide.

That set of incidents raised significant questions about the regulations concerning the fueling of domestic flights in this country. Yet despite a detailed interim report, the ATSB has yet to deal with this critical underlying issue in the Mildura fog emergency that overtook flights by Australia’s major domestic carriers and put hundreds of lives in peril.

"..The ATSB is there to make flying safer in Australia, not to bury or avoid matters that may embarrass the airlines and their regulator and air traffic services provider..."
P2 - Ben nails it with that last comment

Update to Gold Coast near miss (LOSA).

Via the Oz:

Jetstar, AirAsia planes in near miss at Coolangatta airport

• James Madden
  
• The Australian
  
• 8:15AM July 29, 2016
  

Deputy National News Editor
Sydney

[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/2c3d50db57794368ebfa46801a16b95f/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
Two passenger planes have come dangerously close to a midair collision near Coolangatta airport, prompting an investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

According to a report in The Herald Sun, an Air Asia plane taking off from the Gold Coast came within 152m of a Jetstar flight that was descending to land, causing alarms to sound in both planes’ cockpits.

The Jetstar pilots were forced to take evasive action as the Air Asia plane encroached on its flight path, putting their aircraft into a climb to avert a possible catastrophe.

The minimum vertical separation for major passenger aircraft in Australia is 305m.

The incident, at 11.42am last Thursday, happened about 6km off the coast, north of Coolangatta airport.

How the Jetstar and Air Asia planes came so close to each other. Graphic: Herald Sun

A Jetstar spokesman told the newspaper the pilots of their A320, which can carry 180 passengers, had received clearance from air traffic control to descend.

“During descent the aircraft warning system alerted our pilots to ­another aircraft approaching our approved flight path,’’ he said.

“Our pilots took corrective action to restore the safe distance between the two aircraft.

“The flight continued on to the Gold Coast and landed without further incident.

“It’s likely most passengers would not have been aware of the incident. Our crew did a fantastic job and responded to the situation as they are trained to do. At all times they followed the instructions of air traffic control.”

Air Asia representatives are yet to comment on the incident.

The Air Asia Airbus, which is an A330 and can carry a maximum of about 400 passengers, was taking off bound for New Zealand.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has confirmed it was investigating.

Sandy highlighted that he responded to this article with this typically insightful comment :

How can this happen? One government after another with a hands off policy for aviation. A policy that attempts to distance government for the responsibility of flight safety by the creation of 'independent' Commonwealth corporate bodies. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Air Services Australia and the Australian Transport Safety Board.

CASA has wrecked General Aviation, was the main training ground for home grown airline pilots. ASA riddled with union rules and outdated procedures. ATSB hand in glove with CASA to shift any taint of themselves to those who have little comeback. The three with massive budgets, they defy all of the recommendations of the numerous enquiries going back thirty years in regard to reform.

The Canberra disease: failure of policy on a huge scale built on the myth of Australia's aviation safety record, a record that has too much good luck to be plausible. The airline ATR with the tail that was close to falling off, the Boeing that was below lowest safe altitude on approach south of Canberra, numerous out of tolerance air traffic surveillance issues. Two of our airliners landing at Mildura in fog almost out of fuel. The fatal accident south of Benalla, traffic controllers were not obliged to advise the pilot that he was descending to land into high country way off track.

There's mountains more, search PAIN if you want, or don't worry, she'll be right mate! Alex in the Rises.

Sandy's excellent comment then invoked good responses from both Byron (Bailey) & Arlys:

Byron
1 hour ago

@Alexander CASA is not about safety it is about compliance to onerous ridiculously expensive regulations. Read Dick Smiths article RIP General Aviation. I wonder why the head of CASA is a former fighter pilot ( like myself ) with no commercial in house experience - just an ex air force pilot there to top up his pension on a huge $700,000/-? salary and a do not rock the boat mentality.

Our Part 61 Regs re pilot certification run to 3000 pages. US and NZ regs 100 pages. I am glad I fly a US registered private jet on my US Licence!





arlys
35 minutes ago


The Airforce has always had a grip on BASI, now CASA and it has always been a boys club. My pilot husband found that out the hard way, ending up there After the Airline Pilots dispute. Used to the discipline of the Flight Deck, he was nonplussed to say the least, didn't stay long, went back flying OS, where once more, it made sense. Jetstar is a exceptional airline, and follows the strict safety rules it parent company, Qantas insists on. Another reason for a ILS at OOL.

MTF?- Hmmm....reckon there might be...P2