THERE are some areas where cutting corners may be tolerable. Air safety is not one of them. If something goes disastrously wrong at 40,000 feet, there are no second chances.
You do not pull over to the side of the road to inspect the damage, or hope that the airbag will deploy properly as you careen into a ditch. With aircraft, the results are almost inevitably, and tragically, catastrophic.
It is of grave concern, therefore, to read the alarming reports of commercial pilots in Australia increasingly "flying blind" over airspace that is not being monitored by air-traffic controllers. Nor are these isolated instances. In the past fortnight there have been yawning gaps in air-traffic control coverage in southern Queensland and Cape York, as well as busy aviation routes such as that between Melbourne and Sydney. At the moment these black spots are causing extended delays as flights are rescheduled and redirected to fly around them.
Of equal concern are reports that foreign pilots – often in jets carrying hundreds of passengers – are effectively "flying blind" through deactivated airspace. Air-traffic controllers have warned that, with Australia being one of only a few countries that allows passenger jets to fly through unsupervised airspace, foreign pilots are often unaware of the safety procedures for navigating such routes.
The problem stems from a critical shortage of skilled air-traffic controllers. This has also raised the issue of controllers working extended or double shifts because of staff shortages, leading to claims of fatigue and stress. And this is a profession in which there is not a margin for error.
Nor, when it comes to fatigue-related safety concerns in the aviation industry, are air-traffic controllers on their own. At a recent Senate inquiry, the Australian and International Pilots Association raised claims of repeated breaches of regulations governing pilot fatigue and cockpit duty time.
Unlike so many other seemingly intractable problems at the moment, this one is fixable. The simple solution to the issue is to hire more air-traffic controllers, and pay them properly – both to attract new people to the sector and to retain experienced personnel.
If claims by the union representing the air-traffic controllers are true – that Airservices Australia was explicitly warned of staff shortages six years ago, but failed to act – are correct, then someone's head should roll. Only at the beginning of this year was a plan introduced to increase the number of recruits, which does not bode well for staff shortages and extended overtime in the short term.
When it comes to aviation, public safety is paramount in our increasingly busy skies. There is no room for error, and no scope for cutting corners.
As John Cusack's character remarks to a fellow air-traffic controller in the film Pushing Tin: "Oh, you really think the pilot is controlling this plane? That would really scare me."
Hopefully this will start getting Ministerial pressure on the CEO and Board.
We say TIBA is unacceptable. Airshambles says TIBA is the appropriate contingency plan nd the risks are known. CASA says TIBA is international recognised and doesn't compromise Safety as the pilots have had training, The Ministers office says they wouldn't overrule CASA when it comes to safety, because they know their stuff when it comes to safety. These are circular arguments we've all seen before.
Shit it's "NAS" all over again.
The only difference is that Dick Smith has become the poster boy of the anti TIBA campaign. We suspect he's out for Fence Post Turtles/TFN/Russell's blood. Good on him, regardless of his motivation.
1 comment:
Keep at it fellas! the awful truth here is so wonderfully refreshing to read.
Post a Comment