Regulatory meltdown?
Opinion Editorial, Paul Phelan.
Many aviation industry identities have contacted us over the past week to express surprise at a series of recent executive appointments by CASA’s new CEO John McCormick. Their concerns cover virtually all CASA activity – regulatory reform, flying operations, airworthiness, aviation medicine, compliance & enforcement and legal.
They are shocked to find that many of the necessary reforms implemented under Bruce Byron appear now to be reversed by individuals who have been unexpectedly promoted within the organisation.
A growing number of CASA employees have now either left because of what they see as a deteriorating workplace or are in the “departure lounge.” New appointees include:
- Terence Farquharson, who is to now effectively Chief of Staff at CASA, having been appointed head of the office of Director of Aviation Safety John McCormick.
Mr Farquharson was recently promoted to this acting position apparently without the normal public service formalities. He is currently being sued for a seven-figure sum in damages by Western Australia AOC holder Gerard Repacholi, who alleges misfeasance in public office which damaged his business.
Separately Mr Clark Butson of WA-based Polar Aviation is also sueing Mr Farquharson and a small number of other CASA officials personally on similar grounds. For details see: http://www.aviationadvertiser.com.au/2009/02/theres-still-a-mouse-in-the-house-of-casa/).
As (then) Regional Manager Western Region, Mr Farquharson was also involved in a serious legal farce when actions by CASA eventually forced Mr Barney Fernandes to sell his interest in the China Southern West Australian Flying College of which he was then Managing Director. Not satisfied with bullying China Southern into ousting Mr Fernandes, CASA subsequently laid criminal charges against Mr Fernandes on 28 separate counts of conducting training flights without an approved Chief Flying Instructor.
Apparently the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions finally got the message in the form of a nolle prosequi submission by top Western Australian criminal lawyer Malcolm McCusker in July 2003; but CASA reacted only days before this legal extravaganza was to begin and the case did not proceed. After two years of worry for Mr Fernandes and his wife, the entire case was abandoned, albeit at huge cost to both the taxpayer and Mr and Mrs Fernandes.
This issue is now being examined by CASA’s Industry Complaints Commissioner. See also a detailed analysis of these events, titled Bastardising Barney which has been published and is available on request to paulphelan@aviationadvertiser.com.au
- Narelle Tredrea, a lawyer who has acquired a reputation for legal adventurism in her relentless pursuit of convictions apparently regardless of cost, damage, or veracity. As one recent example, see http://www.aviationadvertiser.com.au/2009/04/dad’s-army-rides-again/. That travesty, which resulted in Mareeba pilot Richard Rudd being charged with an offence which was physically impossible to commit, was thrown out when CASA became aware that statements made by three CASA officials were untruthful. The matter was examined by an external investigator and CASA subsequently advised that the three had been found not to have breached the “CASA code of practice”, which was not what Mr Rudd had accused them of.
Ms Tredrea has also distinguished herself in a recent action against John Johansen, a record-breaking GA pilot who was accused of some relatively minor infringements. CASA management who examined the case agreed that the matter should be dealt with through a couple of infringement notices and some voluntary undertakings by Mr Johansen. But although that course of action was endorsed by the head of CASA’s legal department, Ms Tredrea has subsequently caused Mr Johansen to be charged with five criminal offences.
- And Mr John Flannery, now designated “Head of Continuing Airworthiness,” was the delegate in a decision to remove the training approvals of Cairns general aviation Max Davy. The decision was finally reversed after publication of an analysis titled Dudding the Delegate, available on request to paulphelan@aviationadvertiser.com.au, and a small number of involved CASA employees has since left the organisation. Unfortunately there are numerous other well-documented events in which Mr Flannery’s interactions with industry have had serious effects on industry organisations and individuals as well as on CASA’s reputation. Some of these are a little technical and will be the subject of a separate report.
In the medical area, CASA is now seeking to “get tough” on the issue of pilot colour vision tests, which have been studied to death in the past, particularly by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). We’re told this may include annual colour vision tests (currently required only on initial issue) and that this is so far from international practice and research that it can only be described another uniquely Australian regulatory aberration. Principal Medical Officer Dr Pooshan Navathe is reported to have told a medical conference in Vanuatu recently that CASA intends to be “a regulator with a capital R.” Does this make you see red? (Or green?)
And Mr Ken Cannane, a former senior CASA airworthiness official and currently Executive Director of the Australian Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul Business Association, is now preparing an analysis of CASA’s failure, over the past twenty years, to deliver meaningful regulatory reform, which we hope to publish next week.
One caller told us: “The drain of talent from CASA has now put the organisation back twenty years. I don’t think the industry can survive these shenanigans.”
Another suggested that inappropriate people are now “running the asylum.”
Sorry, we’d like to have ended the week on a brighter note. Comments from the industry are welcomed.
It is now over 40 years since I retired as C P for one of Australia’s larger general aviation coys. To me it seems to be, as the French so precisely put it, “plus ca change, c’est plus ca la meme chose”. At that time there was no one in the senior level who had any useful experience as a civil pilot. And the examiners were being recruited via a RAAF old boys network – again no useful civil experience..
RAAF Old Boys Network? That old myth has been around for decades. As a former RAAF and airline pilot of many years ago, I once applied for a job flying for a GA charter operation. The young chief pilot had this to say to me at the very short interview. “We don’t take ex RAAF or ex Airline pilots here. They can’t fly single pilot IFR and they expect too much of the serviceability of GA aircraft. We cannot afford that luxury….”
What rubbish. Many of the former RAAF pilots had flown Mirage’s Sabres and Mustangs – and if that is not real single pilot IFR then I don’t know what is. Of course what he really meant was that Examiners with RAAF or airline background are not prepared to look the other way and accept dodgy maintenance releases, poorly maintained aircraft – and cowboy pilots. I would have thought the so called RAAF Old Boys Network was just what is needed to clean up the more seedy side of the general aviation industry.
In reply to John Laming. The young C P you spoke to was correct. I speak from considerable experience, not only in OZ, but also in Europe, East and South Africa. Firstly pilots straight out of the Services, are not prepared for civil aviation. They have no problem in manipulating the aircraft, but I and many others found they needed a lot of on-line training to make them efficient “operators”. In a small aircraft that means that twelve and a half percent of the payload is not available during this training period I believe that Ansett held a similar view and that they too, would not accept intake pilots straight from the Forces. Moreover, ex airline pilots do have a problem in converting from a crewed environment to single pilot operation. The reverse is also true. We found when upgrading a light twin pilot to a two pilot configuration, he too needed special training to cope with the two crew environment. I speak from experience here. When I returned to OZ, after 5 recent years at the helm of a DC4, to my surprise and chagrin I found I needed much training to make me really competent in s/p IFR. Nor, during my time as CP in OZ, did I meet or hear of any examiner of airmen who had any useful civil experience. I wonder what the RAAF would have to say , if it was suggested that they employed retired airline check captains to oversee their operations ??
I must correct your comment: “…is now preparing an analysis of CASA’s failure, over the past twenty years”. Indeed it is now twenty one years since the regulatory reform commenced. I suspect there are many in CASA now looking forward to the next twenty one years of job security?