[Peetwo]

Of risks, red flags, ridiculous responses and a rooted system - PartII con't.......

The Toga Boy said;

"Airservices  Australia, the government business that is responsible for TASWAM, said it was “confident that Tasmanian airspace is safe”. “In the past five years the [b]TASWAM network availability has consistently exceeded 99.95 per cent,” said Greg Hood, an Airservices air traffic chief. “There have only been three instances where the target was not achieved and the lowest level of service availability was 99.80 per cent".[/b]

Lame!! I call pony pooh on that statement Greggles. Good thing Hoody that during that other 0.5% of the time the PM's 737 and let's say a QF 737 didn't play mid-air dodgem? Might be time to listen to your ATC, the coal face, the blokes and blokettes that are concerned and outing in reports, the same reports that have been conveniently downplayed, downgraded and diluted the ATSBeaker. Pretty convenient huh? Today a risk but tomorrow no longer a risk, not through mitigation, but by changing a tick box and some paperwork at Pooh Central - ATsB. A miraculous fix that would even have The Lord feeling proud!

ATsB excrement churner said;

"Of the TASWAM faults ­reported by Airservices to the ATSB, none were assessed as ­impacting on aircraft safety or ­requiring further investigation.”

Says who? Beaker? Beakers mum? The Melbourne control tower cleaner? Miley Cyrus? Linda Lovelace? FFS this entire thing is the largest growing sordid mess one could not hope for. Only one piece of the jigsaw left to fit - smoking hole.

Tick tock Australian public tick tock

Mr Dolan : We thought it was more effective to ask Airservices to take a look at the tapes and to provide us with their view as to whether there had been a loss of separation assurance.

Senator WILLIAMS: How long would it take you to look at what Senator Xenophon is requesting? How long would it take you to look at that information? A couple of hours?

Mr Dolan : Possibly. It would need to be done by someone with air traffic control experience so that they could understand it, and we have a range of priorities that we have got our limited air traffic control expertise focused on. This is a matter of the management of limited resources.

Gobbledock:

"Interesting that the coalface ATCOs obviously believed the YMML/YMEN incident serious enough to confidentially report through the seriously flawed REPCON system, although after this particular REPCON and the way it was handled - plus the flippant attitude of the Chief Commissioner - one has to ask why would they bother ever again".

Let's consider your worthy statement for a moment regarding the ATC. These guys and gals do a stellar job under extreme pressure and fatigue, battling management bullshit and nepotism, enduring snipes and sometimes bullying because they report, they report into a flawed crappy REPCON system and then have their concerns pooh poohed by their executives, diluted and slam dunked into the black hole. Just culture? Hmm just culture my ass. Then to top it off they get to see executives earning $700k per year excluding bonuses, they see Consultants earning a $1 million per year, they see a flawed illogical and dangerous system protected by management, they have to fight for crumbs during EBA negotiations, they are under resourced, under appreciated and undervalued!

My hat goes off to you boys and girls. Chocolate frogs and smith crisps for all of you...

kharon:

...My point being that some of the senior ATCO and their union representatives do know exactly and precisely where the skeletons are kept, who buried ‘em, why and how much it all cost.  They also understand the system, where and why the system is failing.  Take this ‘Procedural separation’ malarkey as an example and add in the purported failure levels of the TASWAM.


Three points which the ‘crats won’t be rushing to divulge (i) what happens when the system does fail and there are aircraft operating in it; (ii) when more than one aircraft are running into a port, procedural separation costs one of them time; which is translated into money i.e. passed on cost to the punter; (iii) the ATSB has cynically removed it’s self from investigating the system errors and is part of the pass the responsibility parcel game.

Bring in the troops Senators, hear what they have to say and be afraid; very afraid.  We are...  

Money talks but at what risk??

Further to the TASWAM story in the Oz today:

Tasmanian tourism fears backlash from air traffic controversy  

• by: MATTHEW DENHOLM
  
• From: The Australian
  
• September 03, 2015 12:00AM
  

Tasmania Correspondent
Hobart



‘Our concern is to ensure there are no negative perceptions that flying to Tasmania is not as safe as it should be,’ says Tourism Industry Council Tasmanian chief executive Luke Martin. Picture: Sam Rosewarne Source: News Corp Australia

Tasmania’s peak tourism body fears controversy surrounding air traffic management in the state may hamper its booming tourism trade.  

Following revelations about ­repeated failures of the state’s air surveillance system, Airservices Australia yesterday met the to reassure it that air travel to and from Tasmania was safe.

TICT chief executive Luke Martin told The Australian the ­industry wanted to ensure the controversy did not give rise to perceptions that might deter tourists from visiting the island. “Our concern is to ensure that there are no negative perceptions that flying to Tasmania is not as safe as it could or should be,” he said.

“The industry has significant growth projections and if we meet the target of 1.5 million visitors (a year by 2020), there will be a significant increase in air passengers at both ends of the state.

“We’re talking another six daily flights at the busiest times of the year and a 30 per cent to 40 per cent increase in passengers into Hobart over the next five years.”

He said the tourism industry, one of the powerhouses of the Tasmanian economy, would want to see air traffic management keep pace with the rapid increase in ­visitors.

“Tasmania has become a major destination and is no longer a backwater — it is a growing destination,” he said.

The Australian yesterday revealed faults were still frequently being reported in Tasmania’s Wide Area Multilateration (TASWAM) surveillance system, with planes disappearing from radar screens for minutes at a time on several occasions.

Airservices and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau say the failures are not regarded as safety incidents because the TASWAM radar is only one tool used by local tower controllers to guide planes using “procedural separation”.

This primarily involves the use of radio contact with pilots, as well as visual observations, to ensure aircraft are kept a safe distance from one another.

However, The Australian has revealed that some pilots and the company that supplied TASWAM believed it could and would provide full radar-controlled separation to the ground, replacing procedural separation.

That has still not occurred five years after the $6 million system was installed, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has advised it will not approve TASWAM’s use for radar control below 8500 feet because of inadequate coverage.

Airservices insists TASWAM’s use as a “situational awareness” tool to assist tower controllers using procedural separation is safe and appropriate, but the Virgin Independent Pilots Association says it is “nowhere near as safe” as full radar control to the ground.

Last month, The Australian revealed a CASA audit of Tasman­ian airspace management had resulted in the commissioning of two reviews, one by Airservices and another by CASA’s office of airspace regulation.

Airservices has stressed it was aware of Hobart Airport’s plans to expand and double passenger movements by 2035 and the need to keep “ahead of the game” by making air traffic management changes as required.

 
I can truly understand the concern of the TICT, however if they want to see tourist numbers plummet, try having a smoking hole in some suburb of Hobart; or having the majors parking aircraft because the FAA have bumped us down to level 2...

No the simple solution is to upgrade/fix the TASWAM system so it performs as originally intended & advertised - Dick, SAAB Sensis & Co call Bullocks on ASA

However, The Weekend Australian has obtained a press release­, issued in the US by the company that supplied the system, which categorically states that it was intended to replace procedural separation with full radar control to the ground.


The release by Sensis Corporation, made to global media on November 1, 2010, after TASWAM began operating, says the system means Tasmanian airspace is “now controlled”, allowing radar controllers to “separate aircraft in both en route and (in) terminal airspace”.

It describes this as a “safer, more efficient use of the airspace in a region that was previously controlled with procedural separation”.

However, five years on, airspace below 8500 feet at the Hobart and Launceston airports is still controlled by procedural separation, described by the Virgin Indepen­dent Pilots Association as “nowhere near” as safe as radar control and by aviator Dick Smith as a “1930s” system.

Airservices has accused The Australian of inaccurate reporting in suggesting that TASWAM was not being used to the extent originally intended.

However, yesterday, Sensis — now called Saab Sensis — stood by its 2010 statement that TASWAM was intended to provide radar control to 150 metres from ground level, allowing a “safer, more efficient” system to replace procedural separation.

"From a technical perspective, the system is capable of that (radar control to the ground): at the end of the day, it’s up to Airservices and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to determine how they use it,” a Saab Sensis spokesman said.

“We’ve never had any concerns or issues raised by Airserv­ices Australia in relation to TASWAM operational function.”

To do otherwise will put at risk a whole industry and threaten the economic well being of a currently economically depressed Tassie State for perhaps the next twenty years.


MTF...P2