Helicopter pilot training professionals contacting AviationAdvertiser say they were appalled to hear that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) was not investigating the training helicopter crash on Mount Barney near Kyogle on January 28.

Dutch police have arrested a pilot at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for flying a Turkish airliner with a dodgy licence. The Swedish pilot was preparing a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737 for a flight to Ankara, Turkey, with 101 passengers aboard when arrest was prompted by a tipoff from Swedish authorities.

The United Kingdom Air Accidents Investigation Branch (UK)/AAIB has released its final report on B777 loss of engine power and crash-landing in January 2008 at London-Heathrow.

In January the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) published a comprehensive report titled Answering the Call to Action on Airline Safety and Pilot Training in response to concerns about growing risk surrounding airline travel – particularly on regional carriers’ services.

In a press release that accompanied the report, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt explained, “The report lays out our initial actions to improve and revise pilot training and to develop an effective pilot fatigue rule. We also share what we have done to begin what must be an ongoing dialogue with airlines and unions to strengthen professionalism in the aviation industry and create mentoring programs for our nation’s pilots. This report is a snapshot of our work, which is by no means finished.”

Search teams are working to recover the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed shortly after takeoff at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport during a raging storm last Monday.

Automated signals from the devices have already helped searchers to identify the exact location of the recorders in water 1300 metres deep, about 10 km west of Beirut Airport, but it has not yet been confirmed whether they are still attached to the aircraft fuselage.

Four major Australian resource companies and the Flight Safety Foundation have developed and launched a unique new program to streamline the flight safety auditing of air operators contracted to transport resource industry workers and executives.

In Western Australia alone. Some 25,000 resource industry workers are transported by fly-in-fly-out contractors, and similar substantial operations are in place in Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and the Bass Strait oil rigs. All these operations involve a range of chartered aeroplanes and helicopters, as well as dedicated airline aircraft on charter to the resource sector.

Victims’ families affected by the May 2005 Lockhart River air disaster are dumbfounded at an Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) decision on January 22. They believe the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has seriously bungled its handling of an application for a foreign aircraft air operator certificate (FAAOC) to PNG-based Trans Air Ltd, the company whose Swearingen Fairchild Metroliner crashed during an approach to Lockhart River in bad weather with the loss of all 13 passengers and two crew.

Alexandria, VA, January 21, 2010 – The Flight Safety Foundation announced today that the International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) has signed the Joint Resolution Regarding Criminalisation of Aviation Accidents, a document that was originally jointly published in the fall of 2006.

“The safety of the travelling public is endangered by overzealous prosecutors attempting to criminalize aviation accidents, which can have a chilling effect on cooperation with accident investigators ,” said FSF President and CEO William R. Voss.

Over-optimistic enroute and terminal weather forecasts seem to have been big contributors to the splashdown of an aeromedical jet in the sea off Norfolk Island on November 18 last year.  And it may have been a flash of local awareness on the part of an airport fire officer that saved all its six occupants.  In the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s preliminary report, published today, ATSB says that the Pelair Westwind 1124A’s crew had planned the fuel stop at Norfolk Island, 1722 nautical miles (2,771 km) along its route from Apia, Samoa, to Melbourne.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has launched a special audit of two air operators following the ditching of a Westwind jet off Norfolk Island on Wednesday 18 November 2009.  CASA says it is auditing elements of the ditched aircraft’s operator, Pel-Air Aviation, as well as the Wagga-based carrier Regional Express Pty Ltd.

The following were CASA Director John McCormick’s comments as recorded by Hansard at the end of a session with the Senate Estimates Committee on October 20. “Before concluding, I would like to make an important point, one that should probably have been made long before now. CASA is certainly no stranger to criticism, complaints and variably informed expressions of dissatisfaction with the things…”

The US Federal Aviation Administration is proposing civil penalties totaling $9.2 million in  against two of the USA’s biggest carriers for alleged aircraft maintenance breaches.  The FAA Proposes a $3.8 Million Penalty Against United Airlines for allegedly operating one of its Boeing 737 aircraft on more than 200 flights after the carrier had violated its own maintenance procedures on one of the aircraft’s engines.

We can’t pinpoint the exact date, but readers keep reminding us that it’s 21 years this September since CASA launched its regulatory review program (RRP) to upgrade our dismally concocted, confused, contradictory and contaminated regulatory structure.  The program set sail with the seemingly modest goal of introducing clear and concise regulations that were fewer, simpler, more enforceable, more appropriate, and in harmony with the rule structures of other nations. And there was lots of industry consultation.

The US National Transportation Safety Board has released its factual information and probable cause findings on the 2007 crash that killed 63-year-old millionaire aerial adventurer Steve Fossett.  Fossett went missing after he took off from Flying M Ranch near Yerington, Nevada in a Bellanca 8KCAB-180 (Super Decathlon), and was reported missing by staff when he failed to return.  An intensive search after he went missing found no trace of Mr Fossett and after more than a year, he was legally declared dead in February 2008. The search was resumed when a hiker found some of the aviator’s possessions including identification documents.

The Australian government has named a five-member expert Board of Directors to be tasked with the oversight of reform in the newly-restructured Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).  Also named are the new Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) – the nation’s aviation safety investigation agency and his Deputy.  Industry identities are optimistic about the outcome of the appointments because of the niminees’ intellectual calibre and blend of diverse senior public service and industry backgrounds… read more

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has completed a detailed study of the relevance of general aviation in government anti-terrorism strategies.  The study paints a picture of strong and mutual industry/regulator consultation, and a determination to develop meaningful and effective strategies…

CASA has engaged Melbourne-based external investigator aCkTiF Solutions to aid it in a review into Mr Rudd’s written (and later verbal) allegations that three its inspectors have “acted in a way that breaches the CASA Code of Conduct.” (See previous article – Dad’s Army Rides Again.)  Although there are lots of references…

Australia’s long-claimed status as a shining beacon of aviation safety is copping a severe flogging in the global air safety arena.  Last year the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme conducted an audit of Australia’s air safety oversight. Its139-page report highlights the challenges…