AUSTRALIA'S Civil Aviation Authority has been accused of putting commercial considerations before airline safety in a Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) accident report. BASI has slammed "organisational factors" in Ansett Airlines and the (then) CAA in its report of an Ansett Boeing 747-300 landing accident at Sydney on 10 October 1994.
North of Brisbane on a Sydney-Osaka flight, the crew shut down the No 1 engine following an oil-pressure warning and turned back to Sydney. On landing, the aircraft came to rest with its nose-wheel still retracted as a result of a series of crew errors, says BASI.
At the time, Ansett had launched international services, introducing 747s. BASI observes: "The [CAA's] project manager issued an air operator's certificate [for the 747] to Ansett before all the regulated requirements were met...The organisation climate prevailing in the [CAA] was biased towards commercial considerations."
The report catalogues crew-training deficiencies, arising from rushed procedures and confusion over what manuals, were applicable in training. Ansett has now reorganised operational-management and flight-standards structures.
Source: Flight International
