Old Bar "Dreamcatcher" report leaked

[Guest ozzie]

This link just popped up on FBook.

 

http://www.nbnnews.com.au/index.php/2014/04/16/old-bar-plane-crash-report-leaked-to-nbn-news/

 

Now who in the ATSB would leak information to the press?

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Is it really that complicated?

 

 

 

[Oscar]

Most of it has drip-fed anyway, but a concatenated version is not going to be good news for the RAA (issued a pilots certificate to someone who claimed - and who signed??) - training at a FTF that didn't exist, and in the light of some of the very dodgy stuff that has been shown in pictures in the preliminary ATSB report, if the manufacturer signed off this one as a 'factory build' ( I stress that I don't know about that, but it was 24-reg.; following the CASA audit many Morgans were dropped to 19-reg) then I'd reckon there's a side-order of extra embarrassment to go.

 

Look at how close passengers in the ferris wheel car were to being centre-punched. Think about the consequences of the public reaction to RAA-class aviation if that had happened. It's no bloody laughing matter.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Look at how close passengers in the ferris wheel car were to being centre-punched. Think about the consequences of the public reaction to RAA-class aviation if that had happened. It's no bloody laughing matter.

 

 

[Oscar]

You really are a ponce.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Well looks like everyone played a part in this, pilot, instructor, flying school, aircraft manufacture, show organiser, ferris wheel operator, council, RAAus. All got a mention. CASA seemed to evade any credit for this mess.

 

So make sure your log book, endos, instructor and flying school credentials all add up cause as soon as the aircraft mess is sorted out they will start on that.

 

The actual report will be released tomorrow (17th).

 

 

[dodo]

A pretty depressing process - late, later, later, and now leaked. Delayed from November to Feb to April, and now released to a news organisation.

 

And while it sposhes the blame around... but from what I heard of the draft, it seemed to be avoiding some aspects fairly carefully. I wonder if it will add to aviation safety, or just be the basis for endless litigation?

 

dodo

 

 

[turboplanner]

Not much room for litigation here dodo with no injuries, and fairly specific property damage, but explosive impact on pilots, instructors, administration I would think.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Here's the link to the NBN story: http://www.nbnnews.com.au/index.php/2014/04/16/old-bar-plane-crash-reportpublic-safety-put-at-risk/

 

 

[Camel]

Just some very important points that all should take note of, the pilot was a GA pilot with a restricted licence, he had not flown for many years, he did a RAA conversion. I witnessed the crash and know all connected with this accident, the plane was in no way part of the cause except if it had more power it could have climbed better, the FTF existed, his instructor was good as I was taught by him a long time ago ! How many driving instructors have been blamed for P plate accidents, let alone someone previously licensed, the ALA guide lines don't allow for Ferris wheels to be put at the end of a runway "ALA requirements". http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_assets/main/download/caaps/ops/92_1.pdf.

 

I believe political BS have pushed this investigation. It should not be blamed on his training especially having held a GA licence, anyone can make mistakes, hands up who has not made a mistake !

 

 

[metalman]

Just some very important points that all should take note of, the pilot was a GA pilot with a restricted licence, he had not flown for many years, he did a RAA conversion. I witnessed the crash and know all connected with this accident, the plane was in no way part of the cause except if it had more power it could have climbed better, the FTF existed, his instructor was good as I was taught by him a long time ago ! How many driving instructors have been blamed for P plate accidents, let alone someone previously licensed, the ALA guide lines don't allow for Ferris wheels to be put at the end of a runway "ALA requirements". http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_assets/main/download/caaps/ops/92_1.pdf.I believe political BS have pushed this investigation. It should not be blamed on his training especially having held a GA licence, anyone can make mistakes, hands up who has not made a mistake !

And that is the hard thing with aviation,,,we all make mistakes ,sometimes it's a real hard ,cruel ,even fatal lesson,,,,others get to sit down and quietly reflect on what went wrong , and learn from it!

Even Morgans have suffered not because their aircraft was at fault but in the aftermath it was found to bit a bit of a sh1tbox.

 

The pilot was posting here , inspite of his stuff up I'd hope he's still flying ,at the end of the day it's just a crash that thankfully everyone got to go home from ,,,,,,if/when I have one I hope I'm as successful !

 

Matty

 

 

[dodo]

Not much room for litigation here dodo with no injuries, and fairly specific property damage, but explosive impact on pilots, instructors, administration I would think.

As I heard it, the seagulls were considering suing for pain and injury watching their squatting space so shockingly disfigured.

Everyone else within 10km had already engaged a lawyer.

 

Note: for those without a sense of humour: first sentence untrue. Second sentence largely true.

 

dodo

 

 

[turboplanner]

How pathetic

 

 

[facthunter]

I reckon the Ferris wheel shouldn't have been where it was. Plenty of (collateral?) damage. The real issue is the CAUSE, so what actually caused the accident? ( Yeah we all know the plane flew into the wheel, but why?). There are prescriptions for splays etc. The eleventh commandment is thou shall not get caught, but then you wouldn't do anything.... Nev

 

 

[turboplanner]

I reckon the Ferris wheel shouldn't have been where it was. Plenty of (collateral?) damage. The real issue is the CAUSE, so what actually caused the accident? ( Yeah we all know the plane flew into the wheel, but why?). There are prescriptions for splays etc. The eleventh commandment is thou shall not get caught, but then you wouldn't do anything.... Nev

The video is indicating the Ferris wheel was in the splay.

 

If, as previously publicly reported, the pilot ignored the duty runway, and tried to land downwind, and aborted, then the low climb out angle is explained, and if he turned to avoid a fence, and as he is reported to have said just didn't see the Ferris wheel, that seems a reasonable reason to finish up in the Ferris wheel. Hopefully the ATSB has the answer for us.

 

 

[nickduncs84]

Just another example of the strange obsession that the media fed public has with aviation safety. There was a ship that just sunk off the coast of South Korea. Looks like hundreds dead. Do you think it will dominate the news for a month like the Malaysian airlines flight? How many hundreds of innocent people have been killed on the roads since the old bar incident? Is there an investigation and reporting process like this everytime a truck almost kills an innocent driver how about the dozens of times a year they actually kill people. What about cyclists? Dozens killed every year by cars or trucks. Should we ban cars? How about we ban cyclists. Pure and utter media fed hysteria by politicians and public alike.

 

 

[facthunter]

You have to admit though, it had a special spectacular aspect to it visually. ( and no-one got hurt)

 

 

[turboplanner]

Report is up; let's read it thoroughly.

 

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2011/aair/ao-2011-126.aspx

 

 

[David Isaac]

I did a fair bit of research into the physics of the accident (putting all the red herring politics aside) and after making an initial inaccurate comment at the time which was kindly corrected by another contributor, I came to the conclusion that the accident was pretty simple to explain.

 

Paul (the PIC) made a mistake in a go around, he left it late to make the decision, a decision that plenty of pilots make in error all over the place on ordinary airstrips. The problem was compounded because Old Bar is a short strip, so with limited runway available and limited power he still managed to clear the fence and climb away from the runway, even though he was drifting slightly to the left.

 

Splays are put in place on ALAs for the very reasons of errors and mistakes that Paul made that day. If the splay had been clear, Paul would have climbed away successfully and at the worst would have raised a few eyebrows for a low go around over the public.

 

You think that is too simple ... I think it is that simple ....

 

All the rest of the posturing is collateral damage and it exposed weaknesses at the core of RAAus, at Morgan Aeroworks, at Taree Council and at the organisation of the event. None of those weaknesses caused the accident.

 

There were two main factors contributing to the physical accident:

 

1. A late go around decision (hence arguable pilot competency / training)

 

2. A rather large obstruction in the splay (poor organisational decisions).

 

In my view the main liability lies with the decision to put the Ferris wheel in the splay and not issue a Notam with a displaced threshold. But if they did all that and displaced the threshold, the only aircraft that could have used the strip that day would be probably STOL and egg beaters.

 

But hey it was spectacular, Paul and his passenger survived and by nothing short of miracle, no one was hurt on the Ferris wheel.

 

The two physical casualties were a written off Ferris Wheel and Morgan Sierra, which incidentally is (was) flying again.

 

The administration casualties will be many.

 

 

[David Isaac]

50 page report, one of the most comprehensive i have seen.

 

the ultimate insult is in the 'Safety Summary' of the report:

 

What's been done as a result

 

RA-Aus have taken steps to ensure that the flight training facility that undertook the pilot’s training and its staff are aware of the requirements imposed upon them by the RA-Aus Operations Manual, and that RA-Aus staff at the facility have the required skills and knowledge to carry out flight training operations. The pilot underwent a flight review that established the need for additional training.

 

The festival and airstrip committees reported that in future the airstrip will be closed and aviation operations suspended when the festival is taking place. (my underline and bold)

 

So ... lets not fix the issue with idiots putting Ferris wheels in splays ... lets just shut down the airstrip ....

 

Typical response, I am sorry, but this type of reaction really distresses me. Lets just stop all flying and we wont have any accidents.

 

Will they close the road off into Old Bar if a car runs off the road and runs into a shop?????

 

 

[dodo]

Did you notice how skilfully RA and CASA flick-passed blame downwards?

 

Who would want to run an FTF?

 

dodo

 

 

[pylon500]

Pretty much how it went David, although I should point out that it is only proposed to close Old Bar strip during future festivals (should they be able to run any more), the strip will be open the rest of the time.

 

As the new secretary of the 'Old Bar Heritage Airstrip Management Committee', I was hoping that after the interest died down, we would go back to opening the strip to allow visitors to fly into the 'Festival', but in hindsight, it's probably better left closed for just that weekend.

 

Aircraft that get in early can be parked there, but wont be able to leave till the 'show's' over.

 

Remember, if flying into Old Bar, you should contact someone (me) just to check what's going on, we usually let people in, but if the strip's closed from rain or something, calling will avoid embarrassment.

 

 

[01rmb]

I couldn't agree more. The whole detail in the report and the focus on the administrative details around the training and aircraft registration is irrelevant to the actual problem which was that a large temporary obstruction was constructed at the end of the runway without proper advice to airfield users. With the ferris wheel there the strip probably rightly should have been closed. A 3knot tail wind and 2kg over weight - so marginal a difference.

 

If it was not this pilot in this aircraft it could have been anybody else who happened to be a little long on a short runway having to go around and happened to slightly drift off centre line - very human and should be expected within normal human tolerance.

 

Aircraft Risk Management - keep them out of the air and they will never crash...

 

 

[planet47]

Will they close the road off into Old Bar if a car runs off the road and runs into a shop?????

 

There's only one shop along the road into Old Bar and that could possibly have explosive results. However I gotta say there's one hell of a right hand turn off there in wet weather at night to go to Wallabi Point when one drives a ute!

 

 

[David Isaac]

..... In my view the main liability lies with the decision to put the Ferris wheel in the splay and not issue a Notam with a displaced threshold .....

I should correct my own statement, Notams are not issued at ALAs, but when a pilot seeks permission to land at an ALA which pilots have a duty of care to do, they could be advised by the operator of the obstruction and the displaced threshold. It could even have been put as a temporary warning on the Old bar airfield web site and then the displaced markers would have been obvious.