April 5  2007
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau released it's final report on the FNQ Lockhart River air crash castigating CASA for poor surveillance of regional airline operators and Airservices on their layout of instrument approach charts

The Cairns based TransAir Aero-Tropics Air Services Fairchild Metroliner 111 impacted a hill in FNQ on approach to the Iron Range airport in bad weather in 2005 claiming the lives of all 15 POB

The News Desk report of the accident is HERE

 

News Desk Comment

It's ironic that lives have to be lost before action is taken to address the dismal state of the OZ aviation industry highlighted by Dick Smith in various articles and media releases over the past 15-20 years

The Government has finally recognised that there is a problem and has instigated a newly appointed task-force to review the regulations normally carried out by CASA itself

Dick Smith is one of the task-force members

April 6  2007
Of interest to the News Desk is the just released initial report from the ATSB on the Cirrus SR-22 accident west of Bankstown that almost claimed the lives of all on board when the emergency ballistic parachute failed to deploy during a forced landing after an engine failure

The February 2007 News Desk report is HERE

The sharp-eyed ATSB Investigators were able to pin-point the reason for the engine failure and locate the supporting evidence from within the mangled engine bay at the crash site - they also noted that the emergency parachute lines were tangled around the tail-fin area restricting deployment

 

News Desk Comment

There was a sequence of events that lead to this accident

· CASA Regulations that require an engine bulk-strip after ANY propeller ground strike

· Demarcation of responsibility between Engine Workshops and Maintenance Hangars on engine installations

· Ballistic Emergency Parachute deployment failure contrary to perceived safety benefits of aircraft parachutes

· Humans involved in repairing maintaining and flying in light aircraft

April 7  2007
The News Desk attempts to maintain a balance of news articles and submits the following dialog on a recent parachute activation - this time from the Canadian miliary training establishment at Saskatchewan in Canada

The aircraft concerned is the equivalent of our RAAF Pilatus PC-9/A trainer - the Canadian version is a CT-156 Harvard - the 40 hour student is in the front seat taxiing out for his/her (not specified) first training flight after a few hours in the Harvard training simulator involving emergency procedures and ejection seat activation

In an in-flight emergency the captain of the ship uses the terminology "EJECT - EJECT - EJECT" then pulls the appropriate handle and leaves (shot-out-of) the crippled aircraft still strapped into his/her ballistic parachute seat

 
Involved in the excitement of the first flight in a high-performance turbine-powered machine the student hears the word EJECT as the instructor explains all mandatory emergency procedures required prior to each take-off

Yeah ..no need to tell you what happened ...BANG - WOOSH

The seat worked "as advertised" - the student landed on the taxiway after a successful canopy deployment - the instructor remained in the aircraft and was not injured

News Desk Comment

There was a sequence of events that lead up to this incident

· Humans involved in repairing maintaining and flying in   light   military aircraft