Lifejackets On All Flights After Whyalla Findings
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday November 10, 2000
All commercial aircraft flying over water will be required to carry life jackets after an investigation found that they could have increased the chance of survival of at least two passengers in the Whyalla Airlines tragedy.
The Civil Air Safety Authority yesterday said it would accept the recommendation of the aviation authority investigating the crash to abolish the existing exemption for small aircraft on carrying life jackets.
A CASA spokesman, Mr Peter Gibson, said the change in regulation would be a matter of the ``highest priority".
The Whyalla Airlines Piper Chieftain that plunged into the Spencer Gulf on May 31, killing the pilot and seven passengers was not carrying life jackets because it was not required to.
Aircraft licensed to carry fewer than nine passengers are exempt unless the flight goes more than 50 nautical miles from land.
But in its investigation of the crash, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said preliminary evidence showed that the occupants of the plane would have had time to put on life jackets.
``At least two of the occupants may have escaped from the aircraft after it ditched, but subsequently drowned," the report said.
The Whyalla Airlines plane crashed after a rare double engine failure.
In a preliminary report on the crash last month the ATSB stated that there had been a major failure of the left-hand engine due to a broken crankshaft.
The other engine had failed after a hole developed near the top of one of the pistons.
Following that finding, the ATSB yesterday recommended CASA to alert operators of turbo-charged engines of the possible risk of engine damage if they ran their plans on a lean fuel mix which had been found to increase engine temperatures.
Mr Gibson said CASA saw that as a ``commonsense" recommendation and was looking at how it could be implemented.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
