Whyalla Airlines Attacks Casa
The Age
Wednesday July 12, 2000
Whyalla Airlines, the company involved in the Spencer Gulf plane crash that killed eight people, yesterday accused the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of being vindictive, inefficient and unfair.
Whyalla Airlines managing director Chris Brougham said CASA was understaffed, overworked, slow and caught up in bureaucracy instead of safety.
``They (CASA) are an all-encompassing body with an incredible amount of power and from our point of view they are the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner," he said in evidence to a hearing of the Senate rural and regional affairs and transport committee in Melbourne yesterday.
The committee is inquiring into air maintenance overseen by CASA.
Whyalla Airlines was grounded by CASA after both engines of a Piper Chieftain failed and the plane crashed near Whyalla on May 31.
Mr Brougham said that the reasons given for suspending his airline's operator's certificate on June 10, pending the outcome of an investigation, would not normally have been sufficient to ground an airline. No investigation, he said, had blamed Whyalla airlines.
He said he was ``talking with some trepidation" for fear of reprisals from CASA.
``It has been our experience in the past that if we ... speak out about a problem with CASA, if we complain about CASA, we end up paying for it," he said.
Mr Brougham said his brother Kym, the airline's chief pilot, had decided not to give evidence because he had already been ``burnt" by CASA and feared falling out of favor with the authority.
CASA was understaffed, overworked, inefficient and lacked any understanding of commercial realities, Mr Brougham said. The company was losing $40,000 a week as a result of its three Chieftains being grounded.
He said the authority was slow to react and sometimes failed to respond when it was contacted or was unhelpful.
Mr Brougham said that when he asked his local MP for help, the politician was told to ``back off on CASA".
In evidence to the hearing, CASA director of aviation safety Mick Toller defended the authority, saying it was, like any other regulator, open to independent review.
The suspension of the air operator's certificate is being appealed at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in South Australia. The matter is expected to be heard today.
In explaining the reasons for grounding, Mr Toller said Whyalla Airlines, which flew four Chieftains, had had three engine failures in the first six months of the year.
He denied any political pressure.
© 2000 The Age
