Crash Airline Gives Up Licence
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 1, 2000
Whyalla Airlines has conceded it will not fly again, surrendering its operator's certificate yesterday, two months to the day after the fatal crash of flight 904.
Its managing director, Mr Chris Brougham, made a scathing attack on the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, alleging CASA stalled proceedings to force it to close.
An enraged and at times tearful Mr Brougham spoke to journalists hours after the airline withdrew its appeal in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal against CASA suspending its certificate.
Whyalla Airlines has been grounded by CASA since its Piper Chieftain VH-MZK plunged into Spencer Gulf just after 7pm on May 31, killing all eight on board.
Mr Brougham labelled the authority ``inefficient" and ``obstructionist", claiming CASA had a vendetta against the airline.
He said his company could not afford a court battle against the authority likely to have lasted another four weeks.
``We are broken, financially and emotionally," Mr Brougham said. ``We are tired of the attacks on our personal integrity and our professionalism and we have had enough." He said the airline had spent about $70,000 on the appeal and estimated that CASA had spent about $300,000.
Mr Brougham claimed CASA's evidence during the appeal was speculative and irresponsible.
``I think that following the air crash on the 31st of May somebody in CASA decided Whyalla Airlines should not fly and they set about building a case to back that premise." He said CASA's role was never to find the cause of the accident but to assess fitness to fly.
However, he said he was confident his airline was not at fault in the accident. ``Everything CASA has brought up in relation to our air accident would have made no difference; you cannot get away from a one-in-a-million chance of a double engine failure."
Mr Brougham denied CASA's allegations of running lean on fuel, putting undue pressure on the pilots, especially the pilot of flight 904, Mr Ben Mackiewicz, and vehemently denied the dreadful image portrayed of his brother and chief pilot, Kym. ``The picture that has been painted of Kym has been grossly unfair ... The young pilots looked up to Kym. He was a father figure for them."
The businessman Mr Dick Smith attacked air safety again yesterday, warning that a tragedy would also take down the career of the Transport Minister, Mr Anderson.
``There are in fact too many staff [at CASA] writing too many letters, and not enough strong people under strong leadership saying, `we'll give you a couple of chances but then we're going to prosecute you'," Mr Smith said. ``I've never yet seen one aircraft in the Canberra head office, where it needs to be, strong surveillance, and people climbing over, checking that operators are actually complying."
Mr Anderson denied trying to gag Mr Smith, but admitted he had warned him against any campaign which could damage confidence in aviation.
``I did say to him: `You are the chairman of CASA [and] you really ought not to be running scare campaigns about your own organisation all the time. You ought to be fixing it that's what the Government's asked you to do."
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
