The non-prosecution of Jetstar for failing to notify the Australian Transport Safety Bureau of a reportable air safety incident demands answers as to why the Qantas subsidiary is untouchable when it breaks the law.
The ATSB moved immediately to shut down its exposure to public discussion of the seriously botched Jetstar missed approach at Melbourne Airport on July 21, 2007, by announcing it would not engage in any discussion beyond a press conference at which its final report into the incident was released.
The ATSB report says bluntly that Jetstar learned on August 2 that the incident, in which an A320 sank to within 11.5 metres of the ground when it aborted a landing at a fog-shrouded Melbourne Airport, had triggered a ground proximity warning in the cockpit, where two pilots were struggling to comprehend the situation because of flawed training given them by carrier.
It is a compulsory requirement of the Transport Safety investigation Act 2003 (regulation 2.4) that such an alert in a passenger airliner must be reported to the ATSB within 72 hours of being detected.
But Jetstar did not acknowledge the situation, or provide all the details of the July 21, 2007 incident to the ATSB until ordered to do on September 11, 2007, after reports about the incident were published in Crikey and Aviation Business.
On December 1, 2006, the ATSB had no hesitation in referring Lessbrook Pty Ltd (which operated under the name Transair) to the Director of Public Prosecutions for its failures to report aviation safety occurrences to the bureau as required by legislation.
Yet when a big airline, a subsidiary of Qantas, failed to report the critical details of its incident, the ATSB took no enforcement action, and shut down debate.
It is a situation that smells badly. The ATSB is acknowledged for the quality of its aviation investigations, but where is its integrity and consistency if it cannot deal with the regulations being broken, and flaunted, by a major Australian airline?
Terrain! Terrain! Terrain!
Wake up, Straya
I trust IATA knows of the slackness of the authorities in Oz.
Unfortunately airline safety regulatory reform will have to wait for a major disaster when the Coroner, with the appropriate force of independence, will shame the government and regulators into a better performance. Unfortunately this will occur after a number of people have been killed as a consequence of lax safety management.
In the meantime the cosy relationship between the airlines and the major political parties will continue unabated, with the regulators having no” teeth” because of political interference. Unfortunately this cosy relationship between government and the industry operates on both sides of the political fence with politicians of neither persuasion having the guts of the balls to take on the airline industry in relation to its multitudinous safety breaches.
The incestuous relationship between government and in the airline industry, including airports, extends to the vexatious prosecution of Alan Kessing over the leaking of the airport security scandal at Sydney airport, and the vicious price gouging on airport parking at Melbourne Airport as a consequence of the dismantling of regulatory price controls over the airport by the ACCC.
Whilst it was the Labor Party that sold the airport, with a loss of amenity to the community for a few pieces of silver to fund election promises, it was under the Liberal party regime that the CPI -X regulatory control on airport pricing were effectively dismantled.
Dear Ben
For the benefit of your readers, I thought it would be useful to put forward the ATSB’s view of the issues you raise.
The ATSB is very conscious of the need for timely and comprehensive reporting of aviation occurrences. The flow of this information is essential to our investigation job. The Transport Safety Investigation Act reinforces this by making it an offence not to report occurrences.
As our investigation report tries to make clear, the occurrence was notified to us shortly after the event. That notification did not say that the EGPWS had been triggered; that information was not available to the reporting area of Jetstar at the time their report was made.
The safety management system at Jetstar made no provision for revising or supplementing a report to the ATSB when new information came to light, such as when Jetstar internal review established that the EGPWS had been triggered. As a result, we were unaware of the seriousness of the occurrence.
That situation was clearly unsatisfactory. We have made sure that, up to the most senior levels of Jetstar, all necessary steps have been taken to prevent a recurrence. We consider that action a proportionate response to a single incident of inadequate reporting.
In the light of our standing policy of a graduated response to failures to report, we did not think further enforcement action was necessary or appropriate. (In the previous case you refer to, the ATSB believed it had evidence to indicate at least 25 separate breaches of the reporting requirements.)
We do, however, reserve our right to take action against any operator where we establish that there have been deliberate breaches of the notification provisions.
You also indicate your view that “the ATSB moved immediately to shut down its exposure to public discussion” of the investigation. It is true that, after we held a media briefing at the time of releasing our report, we indicated that no further media briefings would be conducted by the investigation team. Our preference is to use the time of our investigators for their main work of investigating.
At the same time, we also made it clear that follow-up media enquiries could be directed to our media phone number: 1800 020 616. We are always happy to clarify and explain the contents of our reports after they are released.
Best regards
Martin Dolan
Chief Commissioner
Australian Transport Safety Bureau