CASA's priorities for aviation safety
Passengers are the number one priority for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
The passenger carrying sectors of the aviation industry are given precedence over commercial non-passenger carrying operations, private flying and sports aviation.
CASA’s resources are being aligned with this hierarchy, which has high capacity regular public transport at the top of the list.
Chief executive officer, Bruce Byron, released a formal policy setting out the priorities for CASA in November 2004.
Mr Byron said this was the first time a formal, clear policy had been developed which prioritised CASA’s work regulating aviation safety.
“Over the years there’s been a lot of assumptions about what CASA is supposed to do and what it actually does,” Mr Byron said.
“For the first time we have a clear policy that says passengers come first and all other operations take a lower priority.
“It doesn’t mean we will walk away from safety regulation in the lower priority areas, but it does mean we will move our resources to match the priority given to passengers.
“This policy allows us to think more clearly about what safety activities are really needed in each sector of the industry, so CASA can become more effective in improving safety.”
Passenger policy
The new policy setting out CASA’s overarching priorities states that the authority has been established primarily to look after the interests of the travelling public.
In addition, the policy says CASA’s resources must be allocated according to these priorities.
A risk-based approach has been taken to setting the priorities based on factors such as public concerns about their control over risks, their safety expectations and the potential for multiple fatalities.
CASA’s new priorities by industry sector are:
- Passenger transport – large aircraft
- Passenger transport – small aircraft (includes low capacity regular public transport, charter and humanitarian aerial work such as search and rescue and medical evacuations)
- Other commercial operations which carry passengers, such as joy flights
- Flying training
- Aerial work carrying passengers such as geological surveys or media operations
- Non-passenger carrying aerial work such as agricultural and freight operations
- Private transport and personal business flights
- High risk personal recreation and sports aviation flights
This hierarchy of priorities applies to the maintenance organisations, aerodromes and other infrastructure that support each sector of operations.
In other words, maintenance organisations that service high capacity regular public transport operations have a higher priority than other organisations.
The policy states that the allocation of CASA’s resources to a sector will correspond to that sector’s position on the list.
This means the overwhelming proportion of resources will go to the first five sectors, which carry passengers.
In the non-passenger carrying sectors of the industry CASA will generally limit activities to controlling the people and organisations who enter that sector, providing education about the risks of that sector and removing people or organisations from the industry who endanger lives or engage in other unsafe practices.
CASA will not generally conduct direct routine surveillance of these non-passenger carrying operations.
Mr Byron said CASA will not ignore any sector within the aviation industry, but resources must be appropriately targeted.
He said flying training ranks on the priority list ahead of a range of other activities because of its importance to safety across the industry.
“Many of the people who are student pilots today go on to become commercial and air transport pilots, carrying the bulk of passengers.
“For those pilots who remain in private operations, training is still the best means we have of delivering and improving safety.
“CASA will keep working with industry in this key area to find ways of improving training.”