Hello, this is your work experience pilot speaking

There is something unsettling about Jetstar operating a passenger flight in which a pilot with only 50 hours experience on an A320 fails a training landing approach, and it then gets ‘buried’ among 19 other lower level incident reports finalised this week by the ATSB.

The incident, at the Gold Coast end of a flight from Sydney on May 30, was reported a short while ago in Crikey.

It cannot fail to be among the incidents examined in the forthcoming Senate inquiry into pilot training and standards in Australia instigated by independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon.

Keep in mind this inquiry is going to look at lifting Australian skills standards in main line passenger aircraft to the US minimum of 1500 hours flying experience for pilots being hired at the first officer level.

Also keep in mind we don’t know if the 50 hour Jetstar first officer had 5000 hours in a whole range of other aircraft prior to his engagement, something that would have been immediately revealed if this was a the highest level of ATSB inquiry that one might reasonably expect for an incident involving a medium sized jet airliner in scheduled service by a major Australian carrier in a training incident in which up to 177 passengers could have been on board by seat count.

Above is the diagram of the situation that rapidly arose at the Gold Coast Airport on May 30 as shown in the ATSB report, indicating the position at which the throttles of the jet were retarded in order to get it on the ground, the point at which the captain conducting the training exercise had taken control off the trainee pilot and pushed them to the maximum thrust go- around setting, and the point at which the jet’s main wheels contacted the runway before it pulled away under the increased power, to return for a more conventional landing.

Readers who go to the source material may be astonished to discover that this report comprises only two pages, numbered 22 and 23 out of a 70 page report. (The folio number may be different that the frame number when the report is viewed on your computer, and is found on the bottom of each page.)

The ATSB identifies no safety issues and makes no safety recommendations. It offers a comment, reproduced in full below.

Referring a major Australian airline, one that claims that its is proactive about safety, to a series of basic articles on the need to be aware of when to go-around is nothing short of astonishing.

What next? A colouring in poster on how to be a safe airline?

Referring Jetstar to CASA for consideration of a top level audit of its flight and training standards would be more appropriate. The May 30 incident, involving a jet load of passengers, deserves being considered with other previously published ATSB reports on Jetstar, and acted upon at an executive level.

Elsewhere in this collection of ‘lowest level’ incident reports is one concerning a Qantaslink Boeing 717 with 68 people on board making a visual approach on July 14, 2009 to the airstrip at Ayers Rock, during which the approach speed of the jet twice fell below normal manoeuvring speed but not so low as to constitute a threat to its safety.

Careful reading of that report reveals that the pilots weren’t aware of how the 717’s auto throttle system would respond in certain circumstances, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the flight standards of the carrier, although you would never know this on a casual reading. (Go to folio page number 5).

Isn’t full knowledge of the low speed behaviour of a Boeing 717 something most Australians would regard as a given in a Qantaslink operation?

Anyone who has ever flown into the strip on a clear day in an airliner would also know that the jet was probably performing the almost obligatory scenic approach to the Yulara resort strip in order to give passengers a better view of Uluru, although this is not mentioned in the report.