(CASA statement)

A special audit of two air operators is being carried out by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority following the ocean ditching of a Westwind jet near Norfolk Island last week.

CASA is auditing elements of the operator of the aircraft, Pel-Air Aviation, as well as Regional Express Pty Ltd. Pel-Air is a member of the Regional Express group.

The special audit will look at a range of areas that may relate to the ditching of VH-NGA on Wednesday 18 November 2009.

CASA’s special audit is being carried out in addition to an investigation of the accident by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. The CASA audit will not pre-empt the findings of this investigation.

Areas to be examined include fuel policies and practice, flight planning, in-flight operations during changing weather conditions, the check and training of pilots, safety management systems and the inter-relationships between Pel-Air and Regional Express.

CASA has already written to the companies requiring a range of relevant documentation to be supplied.

A request has also been made to interview the pilots of the aircraft that ditched.

That is why it is back in the news today. It is part of the softening up process for its announcement in the near future, possibly before Christmas.

Otherwise, only one material thing has changed since this report (illustrated with map and aerial photos) and its follow up, appeared earlier this year.

That change is the Rees government giving up on a very fast train connection to a remote airport outside the Sydney basin, and accepting the argument that unless Sydney flights actually come and go from Sydney, rather than somewhere across the great divide, or in the highlands or assorted vineyards, the corporate activity critical for the city’s growth, jobs, and the capacity to generate state government revenues will be injured.

There is also a hint that a potential site for a full sized 3rd Sydney Airport may be found in the central coast region, between Sydney and Newcastle. But nothing leaps off the map that doesn’t involve filling in wetlands, chopping the top off Mangrove Mountain, or otherwise provoking a massive adverse reaction in an area largely occupied by dormitory suburbs, natural reserves or seriously complex terrain. (A Hong Kong style airport at Lion Island anyone, reached by an eight lane motorway and express rail line through Palm Beach!) But back to the real world.

The pro Richmond items are:

• It is going to happen.
• It will take, potentially 10-20 arrivals or departures an hour by shorter haul domestic single aisle jets, namely Boeing 737s and A320s.
• This activity will take pressure off Sydney Airport at times of peak demand by longer haul and international jets, as the airport cannot cope with any sustained growth in traffic.

The contra Richmond list includes:

• No room for serious expansion of the site to the status of a major airport with the 4000 metre runways needed to handle big jets flying long distances and departing on hot days.
• Limited connectivity with other flights, given the range limitations for longer domestic services.
• Irrelevancy for short intra state flights, which currently clog the main airport.
• The need for seriously costly road building to make it more broadly attractive to the greater part of Sydney.
• A further delay to the real need, which is a full scale airport at the only alternative site left in the Sydney basin, which is preserved at Badgery’s Creek.

Qualifications

The opportunity to improve rail services to the NW of Sydney is neither a pro or con.

Comparatively low cost improvements to the Blacktown-Richmond suburban line could link the metropolitan network to the airport and shift the existing line to a station adjacent to the terminal.

This would improve life for other commuters, and if these rail upgrades lead into the route of the Chatswood-Parramatta line, which was built only as far as Epping very good things could follow, especially if there was also an extension of the line south to provide a second harbour rail crossing from the north shore.

The sting in this is that NSW is incredibly bad at building railways, and it could take 50 years, or eternity, to happen, whether in part or full. Richmond will open for business maybe a lifetime before it gets anything more the shorter cheaper option, that is, an airport station and an improved link to Blacktown, where passengers can join the hell on rails of the rest of the network.

If the all new NW rail line (whether heavy rail or metro) is ever built, the synergies of the Richmond short haul domestic airport improve further, but we are smoking opium at this point.

Richmond is useless too for rural flights, since many of the passengers on them are connecting to international or longer haul flights that won’t be using its 2134 metre runway, and if for example you are flying from many country towns to the city, the time taken to get from Richmond to somewhere in George Street is going to completely ruin the time savings compared to driving to town from the bush in the first place.

A low cost airline airport?

There is a pervasive view in federal and state political circles that somehow a second Sydney airport can be designated ‘low cost’ while the main airport would be reserved for ‘full service’ carriers. This delusion fails to understand the shift toward low cost models and the reality that airlines which do not have low cost bases aren’t going to be in business in the medium term. If Sydney Airport doesn’t accommodate low cost carriers it will be irrelevant, and the only question concerning Qantas is not when the brand will shrink to become smaller than the fast growing Jetstar services, but when?

In today’s Australian, Jim Davis, the managing director of REX, the regional airline that owns Pel-Air follows up the amazing admissions made earlier this week by Pel-Air chairman and former federal Transport Minister, John Sharp about how the flight it sunk in the sea off Norfolk Island had ‘no Plan B’.

Among other things, Davis says “current policy did not mandate an alternative under the right circumstances, such as good en-route weather.”

But the rules do. Civil Aviation Order CAO 82.0 section (2.4) imposes an obligation on the company to carry enough fuel to reach an alternative airport under even the most adverse of conditions, such as an engine failure or cabin depressurisation.

The relevant regulation is reproduced in the post below this. Compliance with the rules is a condition of the Pel-Air air operating certificate or AOC unless a dispensation or waiver has been granted by CASA (which would itself cause a scandal) and CASA’s statement last night clearly implies this is not the case in that it reaffirmed the legal requirements of CAO 82.0.

Pel-Air is carrying out aerial ambulance work. It is seeking another major contract held by the Royal Flying Doctor Service in NSW. But it is managed by people who in relation to the Wednesday night Norfolk Island ditching exhibit variously a lack of knowledge of, or indifference to, the safety rules with the comments they have volunteered onto the public record of newspaper and broadcast media interviews.

Wednesday night’s ditching saw a woman being medically evacuation from Apia to Melbourne and her spouse, the two pilots, and two Care Flight staff left treading water for up to 90 minutes, with only three of them wearing life vests.

For almost two hours on Wednesday night, until the light on a life jacket was spotted in the ocean, Australia’s safety authorities are understood to have believed there were no survivors.

For an Australian jet to sink in the sea because it didn’t carry enough fuel is a gravely serious matter.

The controlled landing Davis and Sharp attributed to the heroic skills of the Captain Dominic James is now admitted by Davis to have occurred with little warning. (Question. Where was the mandatory life raft and was it launched and lost?)

A lot of critical safety issues are now metaphorically circling around a tiny jet lying in shallow water two kilometres off the Norfolk Island coast.

Isn’t a full review of the fitness of Pel-Air to hold its AOC a matter of some urgency from a public safety perspective if nothing else?

Wednesday night’s ditching of a Pel-Air CareFlight medivac Westwind jet is being turned into a media circus by the airline and some very susceptible reporters.

First reported in the Crikey subscriber email today, the incident which left six people, half of them without life jackets, in the sea for at least 60 minutes awaiting rescue after their jet ran out of fuel, has even been compared to the actions of heroic Captain Chesley Sullenberger in landing the US Airways A320 on the Hudson River last January.

What a load of weak minded idiotic drivel.

And John Sharp, a former aviation minister, put up this ridiculous statement this morning as chairman of Pel-Air Aviation, which is owned by REX, the regional carrier.

John Sharp, Chairman of Pel-Air Aviation said that he was very proud of the Captain and the First Officer. “They performed an intricate landing on water in darkness resulting in the evacuation of everyone safely and quickly. The training of both the Pel-Air and CareFlight crew came to the fore as everyone kept together and remained calm. Their professionalism stood out on the day and made a substantial difference to the outcome.”

The nonsense words we have highlighted are ‘very proud’ and ‘professionalism’.

The pilot, Captain Dominic James, ditched a plane carrying passengers in the sea in the dark because he ran out of fuel. That isn’t professionalism.

Where exactly is the professionalism in Pel-Air when it operates a flight that is inadequately fuelled for a worst case diversion, such as depressurisation, or a closed airport, and has no where to go but into the drink, instead of having the juice to divert to the nearest airport in New Zealand or New Caledonia.

For John Sharp to say he is ‘very proud’ of this situation suggests he has forgotten everything he ever knew about aviation and flight standards, or has no knowledge of or respect for the regulations as set out later in this post.

On the ABC tonight Sharp says there was no Plan B if the weather turned nasty.But the weather had been nasty for quite some time on Norfolk island yesterday. One of the principles of safe airline operation is to always have a Plan B, and the fuel to carry it out.

If it turns out that this flight was operated in accordance with the companies operating manual, which is one of the requirements of its AOC or air operator certificate, then CASA is in serious trouble for lack of diligence in approving it. It the flight wasn’t carried out in accordance with the regulations CASA must surely serve a show cause notice in relation to the potential cancellation of its AOC and prosecute the owners and board of the company, who have very serious responsibilities in aviation law.

And even if the conduct of the flight met the conditions required by the company, what sort of a company are we dealing with when this sort of crash is, as Sharp’s comment imply, a consequence of deliberately flying with only a Plan A?

Here is the relevant extract from the regulation CAO 82.0 concerning the Pel-Air flight:

remote island means:

(c) Norfolk Island.

(a) the minimum amount of fuel that the aeroplane should carry on that

(b) if the operations manual does not make provision for the calculation of
that amount or has not been revised as directed by CASA — whichever

2.4 For the purposes of subparagraph 2.3 (b), the amounts of fuel are:

(b) the minimum amount of fuel that would, if the failure of an engine or a
loss of pressurisation were to occur during the flight, enable the

(i) to fly to its destination aerodrome or to its alternate aerodrome for the flight; and
(ii) to fly for 15 minutes at holding speed at 1 500 feet above that aerodrome under standard temperature conditions; and

Suggestion: CASA should act immediately in relation to these prima facie violations of CAO 82.0 (subsection 2.4) and prosecute the owners and board of the airline for multiple offences.

CASA should also conduct a full audit and review of every aspect of Pel-Air’s operations and its fitness to hold its AOC, with particular regard to its fuel reserve policies.

Update 4.15 pm Friday November 20

A CASA spokesman said:

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the ditching of the Pel-Air Westwind aircraft at Norfolk Island and any comment on the investigation must come from them.

CASA has legal requirements for air operators to carry sufficient fuel to undertake a flight safely. This includes additional fuel to deal with delays caused by weather or other factors and enough fuel to divert to alternate aerodromes.

CASA is examining issues relating to the planning of the flight that ditched at Norfolk Island.

Update from the ATSB at 5.15 pm

A spokesman for the ATSB said that the jet was in around 30-36 metres of water, but that a decision on whether the data recorders (black boxes) would be recovered would not be made until after the pilots were interviewed next week.

The other four persons on board would also be interviewed.

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This is an email sent to a reader by his daughter about her friend Hannah’s experience with Tiger in Adelaide yesterday. Our reader has also complained about Tiger here in the past.

Hi Daddy,

Here is the info about Hannah’s disastrous flight (Thursday 19th November 2009)!

We drove Hannah to the airport, leaving college at about 9:20am and getting to the airport about 9:40am. I then went to get a trolley for the bags, we said goodbye etc and then headed off back to college. After I got back I got a text message from Hannah at 10:30am saying that she had missed the flight and was coming back to college. She said that after we had dropped her off she stood in the line for Tiger Airways check-in for a few minutes, despite the fact that there were people behind the counter (doing something on the computers) and she was the first person in line. When she got to the counter she was informed that she was one minute late for check-in and therefore had missed her flight. She was a bit confused, as she had assumed the check-in closed 30 minutes before departure (similar to other airlines) and believed she was in plenty of time, but was told Tiger Airways check-in closes 45 minutes before departure. She got quite upset at this point and asked the lady whether there was anything that could be done to get her on the flight, but the lady informed her that there was absolutely nothing she could do. This was despite that fact that a number of other people also arrived after Hannah, but instead of allowing them all to check-in, they were informed that none of them would be able to take the flight. Hannah was told that she could change her flight to a later time, at a cost of $70. She then went to check the costs of flights on other airlines, but found that they were about $400 to $500 in price, so decided to stick with Tiger Airways and book a 4:00pm flight for this afternoon. She thought she might as well wait around at the airport, but upon asking the woman whether she could put her bags somewhere (two large, heavy bags which needed to be carried) she was told that she needed to take them with her. So she then decided to come back to college in a taxi, at a cost of $20, at which point she rang me to tell me she was on her way back. All in all, a disastrous and expensive ordeal, particularly for a student, who simply wanted to get home and see her family and friends after being away for a term at university.

The critical part of this complaint is that Hannah was told she was a minute late for check in after being kept waiting for counter service for longer than a minute.

This seems conscientiously unfair. If a passenger who arrives in time to meet Tiger’s deadline is kept waiting in line until they are officially out of time is this not petty theft on the part of the airline?

How desperate is this Singapore Airlines controlled airline to totally alienate customers? Is it trying to manufacture reasons to rip people off? Tiger’s response is awaited.

Tiger says (Monday evening)

Tiger Airways is proud to offer Australia consistently the lowest fares for air travel. In order to provide such low fares, Tiger Airways does things differently to other airlines. We actually recommend passengers arrive two hours before their flight, 45 minutes is when we stop checking in.

We have to be strict about stopping check in at 45 minutes before departure – it’s a major factor that helps us to keep our costs down.

Our procedure is to provide PA announcements calling for people who are booked on a flight which is about to close check in, to come forward in the queue and we set up a priority queue if need be to move everyone who is at the check in area just before the 45 minute cut off, through the check in process on time.

Unfortunately it seems that this woman may have just missed the 45 minute check in cut off. we have reviewed the situation and our records show the check in closed on time. We strongly recommend people allow themselves plenty of time (two hours is suggested).

Startling though this may sound, the second interim report into the accident, in which 12 people were seriously injured and at least another 107 suffered minor injuries on the flight from Singapore to Perth has now all but eliminated, as a factor, artificial electromagnetic interference from personal computers, the jet’s own computers, its inflight entertainment system or even the powerful military transmitters at the Harold E Holt naval communications base.

But was natural high energy particle damage a factor? That is the new question.

The ATSB is taking seriously every possible factor in an accident which has defied a complete explanation despite a rigorous examination of the jet’s systems, their maintenance, and everything else that occurred without warning that day, forcing an emergency landing at the Learmonth base, not far from the Holt transmitters.

The second interim report confirms that for whatever reason one of the three air data inertial reference system units or ADIRUs which inform the flight control system of the jet about its attitude or angle of attack among other things was able to overwhelm its error protection system with spurious data.

This set in train, very abruptly, two violent dives generating the sorts of positive and negative G forces that most people other than top gun military pilots would only experience in amusement park thrill rides.

The ATSB reports (both need to be read carefully) detail the exceptional challenges the pilots had to overcome to regain control of the jet, and the confused state of the electronic error messages that were generated as they headed for Learmonth.

But nothing has been found in the manufacture or maintenance or operation of the US made ADIRUs or indeed any other mechanical or systems related function to explain why things went so wrong.

Airbus has however since changed the filter rates and other processes in the ADIRU and related systems to make it ‘highly unlikely’ that such spurious spikes in data can ever again cause a similar upset.

Which leaves the unlikely, but troubling question about high energy or solar particles hanging in the air. To quote the report:

There is a constant stream of high-energy galactic and solar radiation interacting with the Earth’s upper atmosphere. This interaction creates a cascade of secondary particles. Some of the secondary particles, in particular neutrons, can affect aircraft avionic systems.

A single event effect (SEE) can be:

• non-destructive, involving a soft error, where a logic state in a digital electronics component changes from a 1 to a 0 or vice versa but can be reset by cycling the power off and on;
  
• or a hard error,resulting in permanent damage of a component that is not recoverable, even by cycling the power off and on.

High density integrated circuits, such as memory devices and central processing units (CPUs), can be particularly susceptible to SEEs. SEEs have been suspected of generating some of the soft errors that occur in a wide range of different aircraft systems. Hardware and software design features such as redundancy, monitoring, error correction and partitioning can be useful to mitigate the effects of SEEs.

The investigation team is evaluating the relevance, if any, of SEEs to the ADIRU fault that resulted in spikes being produced in ADIRU parameters.

The ATSB report also details the dissimilarities between the QF72 incident and the disaster that killed all 228 people on board Air France flight AF447 on June 1. (My view is that problems with the weather radar on that flight may have been at play and combined with the iced up pitot problem already discussed by the incomplete French investigation converged on the crew of that flight, in an Airbus A330-200 with tragic consequences.)

There is a risk the ATSB’s raising the issue of high energy particle damage may be confused with the risk to aircraft, and a whole range of computer and power grid reliant processes in everyday life at large, posed by a several types of severe solar storms. These are different from SEEs in that a network of satellites and earth based telescopes will provide timely warning of such a large scale event, similar to those that famously occurred world wide in 1859, or blacked out Quebec in 1989.

The first is a class action by a Dallas law firm, the Kendall Law Group which is advertising for aggrieved shareholders to join the case. The second is by the Employees Retirement System (fund) in the town of Livonia, Michigan.

Boeing has rejected the claims as without merit. However they will either be settled or proceed.

The only surprise for this observer is that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hasn’t as yet queried Boeing or instituted its own proceedings. Maybe it has so much on its hands in relation to other matters that this isn’t on its list of things to do, or some way from reaching the top of the in-tray.

In this observer’s opinion and experience, Boeing said anything that was likely to enhance the perception of the 787’s performance, maturity of technology, ease of maintenance and cost savings. It can be argued that this is precisely what image management and marketing is supposed to do, and it did it incredibly well too.

But the issue then becomes where does the line between hype and legal responsibilities under corporate law exist, or, does it exist? To be blunt, the wider issue is whether or not companies can lie about their products with impunity?

SEC involvement would, obviously, be much more serious for Boeing than the current private suits. An SEC prosecution would result in Boeing senior management being examined in a public hearing.

Elsewhere, at Everett, two Dreamliner test aircraft and the static rig have now had design faults in the wing-body join, or side of body as Boeing so quaintly termed it, fixed through the installation of modifications. And Boeing says the first flight of the 787 is on track to take place before the end of this year. Followed by first delivery to All Nippon in the fourth quarter of next year.

There is no guidance yet as to when the static wing strength test will be run. There appears to be an interval of around two weeks programmed between the successful testing of the wing and an actual first flight.

This story The Party Plane to Paris is on its way published here on January 16 has stood the time test fairly well, but it is clear to industry observers that Air Austral will not be alone for very long.

Why? Because with the rise of commodity pricing of air fares, and real prospects of medium term growth in air travel, airlines will try to clobber each other with the lowest seat/distance costs they can get, and where the demand is high that means A380s.

Economies of scale work the same on bulk people carriers as on bulk grain carriers. So do the realities of finite slots at airports, notwithstanding impending efficiencies in air traffic control and the ability to route flights along less circuitous corridors.

Enter the likes of Jetstar, easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz, AirAsia and Tiger. Ignore the rolled eyeballs from airline managements asked how soon they will have  750+ seat A380s on the kangaroo route, or across the North Atlantic. They will have them as soon as they need to be up with the price and volume leaders, or disappear.

The fundamentals of air travel demand have changed. It is a means to an end, not a form of pampered imprisonment.

Of course this means Air Austral’s ambitions for Australia may be somewhat compromised by a Jetstar A380 to Charles de Gaulle, or, mais non, Beavais, the Paris airport that’s nearly in Belgium. Let’s be true to the model, what’s a 75-100 minute bus trip to Porte Maillot after 22 hours of hell anyhow?

Whimsy. Paris commuter falls asleep on metro awakes in the other St Denis

But Air Austral doesn’t need Australia to succeed. Its driver is the awesome torrent of travel that flows between Paris and the far flung overseas departments of the republic, like La Reunion, or the mandated collegiate government of New Caledonia. Refuelling at Sydney between Nouméa and St Denis is just a convenient opportunity to siphon the direct routes to Europe for the adventurous, or gain a slice of the Australia-greater Africa market, for which the awesome volcanic island in the South Indian Ocean is rather well positioned as a future hub.

Tip. Choose lodgings on same side of volcano as airport

It’s sober reading for those who depend on air transport, with passenger numbers substantially below the levels of a year earlier. However Singapore Airlines has in recent days renewed its joint marketing and promotion agreements in NSW and NZ.

The guidance and statistics are set out below:

3rd Earth encounter seen from Rosetta, image ESA

Some images give pause to the pace and distractions of everyday life.

Such as this view of the crescent earth seen by the European Space Agency Rosetta probe last Friday as it began to close in on its third and last gravitational slingshot flyby  on route to its encounter with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

The outlines of part of the Antarctica coastline can be made out in what is a view looking toward the southern polar ‘day’ and Australia is lost in clouds toward the 9 o’clock position.

The flyby images continue to be posted to the Rosetta blog as they are processed.

During the flyby which came to within 2481 kilometers of the blue planet just south of Java late on Friday afternoon Australian time (see animation here) the probe reached a speed of 13.34 kilometres per second, a gain of 3.6 kilometres per second.

Next July it will image asteriod Lutetia as its speeds to its rendevous with Churyumov-Gerasimenko, its velocity gradually dropping until it is captured in a slow and close orbit around its nucleus. If all goes to plan a small lander will detach from Rosetta and study the surface of the comet for a period of months while the main craft continues to monitor the changes that occur as the nucleus itself moves slightly closer to the sun and becomes more active.

Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a comparatively stable comet compared to the likes of Halley’s Comet or Rob McNaught’s Great Comet of 2007, which means it can be studied with less risk to the spacecraft from sudden eruptions of gas and dust from the surface.

The Great Comet of 2007, copyright image by its discoverer Rob McNaught as seen from Siding Spring mountain