Check Post 32 – P2 is adding more ‘links’, notes and dates to the chronology of this ‘passing strange’ affair.
Meanwhile:-
`It's the oldest rule in the book,' said the King.
Then it ought to be Number One,' said Alice.
The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. `Consider your verdict,' he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.
`There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,' said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has just been picked up.'
24th December 2009: Dominic James notice of suspension of CPL, ATPL, CIR pursuant to CAR 265(1)(a). Also given notice to undertake examinations under CAR 5.38.
“I have not been able to locate a signed copy of the SFR.”
The immortal words of one D. Gobbit, Esq to Adam Anastasi, CASA FOI specialist. Now then, despite Aleck’s say -so; Carmody agreed with the Senator, it seems ‘reasonable’ that a document suspending; or, at least ‘limiting’ a heavy weight item like a pilot’s licence should be signed off by the officer with the ‘juice’ to do it. I’ve lost track of the number of SFR James has on his sheet, three seems to ring a bell; no matter – it all takes us back to Chambers running the scam and Hood nodding, but not signing. Which leaves us not only looking askance at the McConvict/Chambers game plan, but asking what the devil Hood was about. There seems to be good reason to question the integrity of the whole action against James, right there. Even if it is only to ‘eliminate’ the item from the suspicion list. Chambers seems to have been determined to ensure that all the blame and paperwork landed on the pilot’s head; which is fine – provided it has all been done according to Hoyle. Hood, despite his protests of innocence and sanctimonious ‘reclusive’ stance, was up to his nuts in some glaring unfortunate administrative ‘errors’. If it can ever be proven that Chambers was off the reservation on McConvicts authority and our Hi Viz Canary - Hood knew it; there’ll be hell to pay. There is quite a long list of unsigned or not signed by author documents, RCA and SFR etc. We wonder why?
Meanwhile – back at the coal face:-
7 December 2009 (Monday): Audit team meet with Pel-Air management to discuss a number of deficiencies within the Westwind Operation. This was backed up by correspondence from CASA on 9/12/2009.
16 December 2009 (Wednesday) : CASA accept the Pel-Air ‘Management Action Plan’ which consisted of three phases
18 December 2009 (Friday): Pel-Air successfully completed Phase 1 items and were able to recommence domestic operations.
What a very ‘interesting’ ten days. Two of them a weekend, which leaves us eight working days. Here is an operation which, in less than a week, managed to answer all the RCA/NCN; have them acquitted and signed off as ‘satisfactory’. Amended operations manuals; FRMS, SMS and international flight protocols, informed flight crew and where required retrained and qualified crew scattered over a few bases - then got it all past CASA – in that short period of time? Bollocks. And anyway – why was Chambers signing the RCA on behalf of the original author? I won’t bang on about this element yet, nor the comparative ‘time-lines’ from other operations beset by CASA RCA. But, for a starter, ask any chief pilot or manager about the time and hassle of acquitting a RCA (NCN) resulting from an audit. There will be much more to follow on this element – standing alone, it’s worth a Senate inquiry – even leaving aside the CASA hiring the chief pilot. But I digress.
8 December 2009: E-mail from ATSB to CASA raising the possibility of contributing to a joint fund sharing arrangement to recover the black box and CASA advised they didn’t have the necessary funds.
This is an interesting part – for the connoisseur of puzzles. Remarkable thing this flat refusal to collect the CVR and FDR. Even if it was an old one with the last 30 minutes of the flight recorded – it was deemed to be irrelevant by Dolan (ATSB), this fully supported by McComic (CASA). This, despite the fact that both ATSB & CASA, both knew ‘the box’ was a newer version and held 120 minutes of data. “Can’t afford it” they mewled together. Hells Bells McConvict spent almost that much, a month, keeping the lovely Libby, then Industry Complaints Commissioner (ICC) in chocolates and champagne. This one, singular aberration typifies, more than any other the determination to force a preordained result into conclusion and fact. In the beginning, the Norfolk locals would have raised the CVR for little more than the price of a carton of beer(Norfolk tourist prices). Gods alone know what the total cost of that CVR recovery is now – when you consider the total cost of a Senate inquiry; plus the total cost of the ASRR, plus the total cost of the TSBC review, plus the cost of a second report. Bloody astronomical.
Easy audit; rapid acquittal, speedy corporate and cultural changes, quickest catch up in flight management and operational procedure/SOP in the history of aviation and the slowest ever recorded retrieval of a critical ‘Black box’ from shallow, still, warm, sunlit waters.
Forget about the aircrew – focus on what Chambers and his merry band of sidekicks were playing at; define why. Then think on the Senate inquiry and ask why, to what end and purpose did ATSB and CASA face down and try to bluff their way out of it; particularly when not only was the simple truth was in their hands, but many alternate escape paths were available.
Aye; ours is not reason why; but we do. We also know that the FAA auditors would not give a flying fundamental about the ditching ‘incident’ in relation to their audit of Australian aviation. But, they may pay a little more attention to this disgraceful shambles and expense foisted on the public purse, next time they visit.
Toot toot.
Meanwhile:-
`It's the oldest rule in the book,' said the King.
Then it ought to be Number One,' said Alice.
The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. `Consider your verdict,' he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.
`There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,' said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has just been picked up.'
24th December 2009: Dominic James notice of suspension of CPL, ATPL, CIR pursuant to CAR 265(1)(a). Also given notice to undertake examinations under CAR 5.38.
“I have not been able to locate a signed copy of the SFR.”
The immortal words of one D. Gobbit, Esq to Adam Anastasi, CASA FOI specialist. Now then, despite Aleck’s say -so; Carmody agreed with the Senator, it seems ‘reasonable’ that a document suspending; or, at least ‘limiting’ a heavy weight item like a pilot’s licence should be signed off by the officer with the ‘juice’ to do it. I’ve lost track of the number of SFR James has on his sheet, three seems to ring a bell; no matter – it all takes us back to Chambers running the scam and Hood nodding, but not signing. Which leaves us not only looking askance at the McConvict/Chambers game plan, but asking what the devil Hood was about. There seems to be good reason to question the integrity of the whole action against James, right there. Even if it is only to ‘eliminate’ the item from the suspicion list. Chambers seems to have been determined to ensure that all the blame and paperwork landed on the pilot’s head; which is fine – provided it has all been done according to Hoyle. Hood, despite his protests of innocence and sanctimonious ‘reclusive’ stance, was up to his nuts in some glaring unfortunate administrative ‘errors’. If it can ever be proven that Chambers was off the reservation on McConvicts authority and our Hi Viz Canary - Hood knew it; there’ll be hell to pay. There is quite a long list of unsigned or not signed by author documents, RCA and SFR etc. We wonder why?
Meanwhile – back at the coal face:-
7 December 2009 (Monday): Audit team meet with Pel-Air management to discuss a number of deficiencies within the Westwind Operation. This was backed up by correspondence from CASA on 9/12/2009.
16 December 2009 (Wednesday) : CASA accept the Pel-Air ‘Management Action Plan’ which consisted of three phases
18 December 2009 (Friday): Pel-Air successfully completed Phase 1 items and were able to recommence domestic operations.
What a very ‘interesting’ ten days. Two of them a weekend, which leaves us eight working days. Here is an operation which, in less than a week, managed to answer all the RCA/NCN; have them acquitted and signed off as ‘satisfactory’. Amended operations manuals; FRMS, SMS and international flight protocols, informed flight crew and where required retrained and qualified crew scattered over a few bases - then got it all past CASA – in that short period of time? Bollocks. And anyway – why was Chambers signing the RCA on behalf of the original author? I won’t bang on about this element yet, nor the comparative ‘time-lines’ from other operations beset by CASA RCA. But, for a starter, ask any chief pilot or manager about the time and hassle of acquitting a RCA (NCN) resulting from an audit. There will be much more to follow on this element – standing alone, it’s worth a Senate inquiry – even leaving aside the CASA hiring the chief pilot. But I digress.
8 December 2009: E-mail from ATSB to CASA raising the possibility of contributing to a joint fund sharing arrangement to recover the black box and CASA advised they didn’t have the necessary funds.
This is an interesting part – for the connoisseur of puzzles. Remarkable thing this flat refusal to collect the CVR and FDR. Even if it was an old one with the last 30 minutes of the flight recorded – it was deemed to be irrelevant by Dolan (ATSB), this fully supported by McComic (CASA). This, despite the fact that both ATSB & CASA, both knew ‘the box’ was a newer version and held 120 minutes of data. “Can’t afford it” they mewled together. Hells Bells McConvict spent almost that much, a month, keeping the lovely Libby, then Industry Complaints Commissioner (ICC) in chocolates and champagne. This one, singular aberration typifies, more than any other the determination to force a preordained result into conclusion and fact. In the beginning, the Norfolk locals would have raised the CVR for little more than the price of a carton of beer(Norfolk tourist prices). Gods alone know what the total cost of that CVR recovery is now – when you consider the total cost of a Senate inquiry; plus the total cost of the ASRR, plus the total cost of the TSBC review, plus the cost of a second report. Bloody astronomical.
Easy audit; rapid acquittal, speedy corporate and cultural changes, quickest catch up in flight management and operational procedure/SOP in the history of aviation and the slowest ever recorded retrieval of a critical ‘Black box’ from shallow, still, warm, sunlit waters.
Forget about the aircrew – focus on what Chambers and his merry band of sidekicks were playing at; define why. Then think on the Senate inquiry and ask why, to what end and purpose did ATSB and CASA face down and try to bluff their way out of it; particularly when not only was the simple truth was in their hands, but many alternate escape paths were available.
Aye; ours is not reason why; but we do. We also know that the FAA auditors would not give a flying fundamental about the ditching ‘incident’ in relation to their audit of Australian aviation. But, they may pay a little more attention to this disgraceful shambles and expense foisted on the public purse, next time they visit.
Toot toot.