Reporting

[TechMan]

In the interest of aviation safety, possible saving of other like aircraft and pilots lives, I am still yet to try and encourage the mentality that reporting is a good thing which can provide useful info.

 

Currently, I know of numerous accidents, some fairly substantial, that have not been reported, but I have no idea why the pilots are hiding.

 

Yeah, ok, you stuffed up, so what. If you are legal to fly the aircraft and you happen to suffer from human err, there should be no reason not to report your error. Perhaps your error can save someone else?

 

If you are not legal to fly the aircraft, then perhaps you do have a reason to hide, but rest assured that the aviation community is smaller than one gives it credit for and word travels faster than the current series of bush fires we are having. Personally, I would take my chances with the sport org rather than dealing with CASA's hounds.

 

Any ideas on how we can slowly alter the mentality of aviators to acknowledge that reporting IS important? One would think that it should start in flying schools, but then again, sometimes things don't go wrong in flying schools to a degree that reporting is necessary, so the student misses out on that experience. It needs to also come from peers and the ordinary day to day pilots.

 

Just a quandry that I have.

 

ps. If you are one of those pilots that has not sent a report in and you know you should have, please do so. The form is available from the RA-Aus site.

 

Chris

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Chris,

 

is RAAus reporting anonymous or not? As I understand it from friends in the airline industry the key feature of these systems is that in order to be successful reporting must be on a no-fault/anonymous basis. The sin that is punished then becomes failure to report.

 

I understand that there may be issues where prosecution is considered necessary. By far the largest proportion of issues though must be incidents or occurences where we can all be safer and learn if they are reported. The goal then becomes getting the issue reported.

 

Be interested in your thoughts.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Admin]

Hi All

 

Let me say that I completely support Chris in wanting reports on any incident or accident. More importantly is that my wife Corrine, my 9 year old daughter Caitlin and my 5 year old son Lachlan supports Chris in getting a report on something that may happen to me that may even result in them becoming a single parent family.

 

Remember that there is never just one single cause of an incident or accident, but rather a culmination of events that when combined together produces the unfortunate event. You may well walk away from say a hard landing just saying darn it but say you have more hours and experience then me and you did one thing different from what I would do and in the same situation instead of me also walking away saying darn it instead you end up attending my funeral. That hard landing that you had for example could end up having a totally different result for a less experienced pilot or if it was in a different aircraft or the wind was just 5 degrees different etc.

 

One of the most interesting things I look at when reading about an incident or accident in our mag is the weather conditions, the total pilot hours and hours on type. I then think about how I would have handled the same situation and I tell you, I learn a lot from these reports. I once heard a pilot say after being told what happened in an accident that the same thing happened to him - the difference was he is still alive.

 

How would you feel if another guy was killed in an exactly same situation that happened to you but you didn't report it for us all to learn from.

 

PLEASE, for my sake, and my family's sake, please report it.

 

If you were doing something wrong and you don't want to get into trouble, well then either use this forum as you can post anonymously in this one or PM me in absolute confidence and I will pass it on to the RA-Aus without any names so we can all learn from it. But please report it!

 

Here is the link to the report form: http://www.raa.asn.au/docs/ops/Accident%20Incident%20Defect%20Report.doc

 

Please!

 

 

[Guest Juliette Lima]

Hi Chris,

 

I concur.

 

A question however...I am aware of a number of fatals over the years that APPEAR not to have been written up for members of RAAus to consider, digest, and to act on in respect of their own flying.

 

Is there a responsibility for our Association to advise membership of all major accidents? and if not what is the policy?

 

In the absence of my knowing all the facts (highly probable), my questions might be misplaced, but I seem to remember the editor of the RAAus mag actually debating the pros and cons of reporting the full outcome of serious accidents as some did not make nice reading. I know that some reported incidents are written up in the members mag., but even checking the RAAus Web site (superb in every respect), there are only a small number of full reports on fatal accidents???

 

Look forward to your thoughts.

 

JL

 

 

[Ultralights]

I have had an incident recently in the Vampire, but the aircraft is in my yard at the moment under storm covers, so it hasnt been possible to get some images of the failed parts,

 

i have no issues with reporting anything, just the aircraft sitting on a trailer makes it difficult to get the nose gear off to get pics and info.

 

oh, how do we go about reporting also? can it be done online?

 

 

[TechMan]

Hi UL,

 

Reporting can be done by fax, email or snail mail at the moment. Hopefully, later on in the year I will be able to implement an online reporting option for those that wish to use it.

 

JL,

 

I will ask the chief what the policy is regarding publishing of the final report on the web. If it has been done before, it should continue, even if it is distressing to people near to the victims.

 

Will get back to you on this.

 

Chris

 

 

[facthunter]

Reporting Incidents/accidents.

 

All responsible sections of aviation report such matters,obviously to limit the likelihood of their repetition,initiate review of practices, change designs, etc. etc. The better it is done, the safer our movement. We should all be behind this one. N...

 

 

[Ben Longden]

If you read the ATSB reports on incidents, you will find they are really well written, clear, concise, factual and in no way apportion blame. Non sensationalist, you could say.

 

Using their formula, it would be possible to write a report of an incident without distressing family and friends.... especially when they are the very ones who want to know WHAT HAPPENED.

 

These folks provide a three stage coverage. There is the initial report, followed by an interim and at the end of the investigation a final report. This keeps the family in the communication loop, as many investigations can take a couple of years to finalise.

 

Ben