Tuesday, 11 January 2005
Letter to the Editor - Aircraft and Aerospace magazine
The Editor
Aircraft and Aerospace
GPO Box 606
Sydney NSW 2001
By Facsimile: (02) 9281 2750
Dear Sir,
I refer to the story in the last edition of Aircraft and Aerospace claiming there is an industry revolt over proposed new airworthiness regulations which contains a raft of inaccuracies. (CASA in the firing line-again p40).
The author, Mr Paul Phelan, did not check any of the claims made in the story with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and as a result, most of the story is simply incorrect.
It is hard to know where to start to set the record straight, as the story contains three pages of error after error.
The biggest falsehood in the story is the allegation that ‘CASA intends to ram through’ new aircraft maintenance rules ‘regardless of industry input’.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is a fact that the current package of proposed new maintenance regulations has a history of consultation with the aviation industry that began back in 1996.
In November last year, CASA decided to issue another Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) to give the industry a further chance to comment. In addition, CASA held meetings with interested people at a range of locations across Australia to allow them the opportunity to talk through the issues.
At the same time the maintenance proposals were again analysed by the Standards Consultative Committee – the industry forum that scrutinises all of CASA’s regulatory reform activity.
Submissions on the latest NPRM closed in mid December last year and CASA is now considering the comments that have been made by people throughout the industry.
There is more consultation to come. A series of meetings will be held with the Standards Consultative Committee’s Maintenance subcommittees to review the safety benefits of each proposed regulation.
Then a Notice of Final Ruling Making will be issued to summarise comments from the industry and provide CASA’s responses and reasons for those responses.
On top of this, CASA’s chief executive officer, Bruce Byron, has established new Regulatory Advisory Panels to provide him with advice on each new group of regulations before they are presented to the Federal Government. These Panels include people from the aviation industry, CASA and the Commonwealth Department of Transport and Regional Services.
No reasonable person could possibly claim that these exhaustive consultation processes allow CASA to “ram through” regulatory reform.
In relation to the many other errors in the story, CASA issues a public plea to the Aircraft and Aerospace magazine to check the facts before rushing into print.
Yours sincerely
Nicola Hinder
Acting Executive Manager
Corporate Affairs