- Allegations published by The Australian which suggest CASA does not take action against instances of unsafe flying are completely false.
- CASA has zero tolerance for serious, wilful or repeated disregard of the aviation rules and takes all reports of illegal aviation behaviour seriously.
- CASA does not normally investigate the owners of aircraft involved in incidents – many are owned under complex financial and shareholding arrangements.
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Troy Robert Thomas was a private pilot that had business interests in some aviation tourism companies. He had ownership interest in companies that owned aircraft that were being operated under another Air Operators’ Certificate.
Mr Thomas has never held any regulatory approvals other than a private pilot licence and was never authorised to make any safety decisions or fly on behalf of Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures or any other company.
CASA refutes the allegations published in The Australian on 22 August 2023. Each of the 2018 incidents was investigated and acted on by CASA.
CASA does not normally investigate the owners of aircraft involved in accidents or incidents – as many are owned under complex financial and shareholding arrangements.
CASA has identified only one significant incident that Mr Thomas was involved in prior to his fatal accident. That incident resulted in compliance action being taken against Mr Thomas.
A comprehensive search of CASA records has also identified some events involving Mr Thomas which did not have a bearing on safety. We also became aware of 6 additional unreported incidents during the Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation following the 2020 fatal accident.
In the 2022-23 financial year, CASA cancelled 6 civil aviation authorisations and suspended 4, and issued 106 infringement notices and 68 other notices. Many more incidents were also investigated under our coordinated enforcement process. We include these figures in our annual reports each year.
Note that this statement was updated on 29 September.