CASA media release - Monday 14 May 2007
New policy puts passenger safety first
The safety of people on board aircraft is the focus of a new key-stone policy issued by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
Under the policy aviation operations that carry passengers are given the highest safety priority, standards and regulatory oversight.
CASA will allocate the majority of its resources to the safety of passenger carrying flights, including safety audits and surveillance.
The focus on passengers is contained in CASA's Industry Sector Priorities and Classification of Civil Aviation Activities policy.
The policy creates three board classes of aviation activities for the purposes of safety regulation.
They are: passenger transport, aerial work and general and freight-only activities.
The passenger transport class covers flights that carry passengers in large or small aircraft, scheduled or non-scheduled. In other words, this class covers operations CASA has previously described as regular public transport and charter flights.
The aerial work class covers a wide range of activities where aircraft are involved in specialised activities and may carry people who are not crew, known as task specialists under the policy. Aerial work activities include emergency and medical flights, law enforcement, aerial agriculture and aerial survey.
The general and freight-only class covers most private operations, flying training, freight-only operations and other activities where only the crew is on board an aircraft. It also includes people who choose to fly on aircraft where they know and accept the level of safety provided, such as recreational and sports aviation.
CASA's chief executive officer, Bruce Byron, says the policy is important because it clearly sets out how CASA and the aviation industry will manage safety.
“Passenger carrying flights get the highest priority in terms of safety because the people flying on these aircraft are not expected to know about or control safety,” Mr Byron says.
“Passengers quite rightly rely on the aviation industry and CASA to manage safety on these flights.
“People who are flying on aircraft operating in the aerial work class, called task specialists, are knowledgeable about the safety of these flights as they have assigned in-flight duties. This higher level of safety knowledge and involvement places these operations in the middle of the safety hierarchy.
“People flying in the general and freight-only class are involved in aviation as pilots, crew or as a participants who understand relevant safety issues.
“The policy will be implemented as CASA issues new Civil Aviation Safety Regulations. Until these regulations are in-place all current regulatory requirements continue to apply.”
Find out more at: http://casa.gov.au/newrules/admin/class/index.htm
Media contact:
Peter Gibson
mobile 0419 296 446
Ref: MR0730