Post by corsair67 on Dec 24, 2005 14:06:19 GMT 12
Lockhart crash still a mystery
Steve Creedy and Ian Gerard
December 17, 2005.
THE cause of Australia's worst air crash in 40 years remains shrouded in mystery despite a six-month investigation because the plane's cockpit voice recorder malfunctioned before the ill-fated flight.
The pilots of the Fairchild Metroliner plane should have received repeated warnings to "pull up" and "terrain, terrain" as they flew too low in bad weather, before smashing into a jungle-covered mountaintop, said an interim report into the crash yesterday.
However, investigators will never know whether the warning system was working properly at the time of the disaster because of the failure of the voice recorder, which had stopped working before the aircraft took off.
Fifteen passengers and crew died when the 19-seater plane, operated by Transair, smashed into the cloud-covered 400m-high South Pap ridge on May 7 as it prepared to land at the remote Cape York Aboriginal community of Lockhart River.
Engineers from Honeywell, the US manufacturer of a ground proximity warning system used on the plane, found the unit should have generated several warnings about the imminent collisions about half a minute before it smashed into a hill.
"Honeywell determined that from approximately 29 seconds before impact, the terrain closure rate was such as to normally generate the warning 'pull up' and the caution 'terrain terrain' messages," said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau interim report.
The finding came as federal Opposition transport spokesman Kerry O'Brien and the families of crash victims accused the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of failing to adequately oversee Transair's operations.
Fiona Norris, whose pilot husband Paul was a passenger on the plane, called for an inquiry into CASA's handling of an audit into the airline conducted just two months before the disaster. "The flight crew were just not operating according to the flight operations manual," Ms Norris said.
"Why were they allowed to do this? If CASA had audited them properly, surely these things would have been picked up."
CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said Transair did not breach regulatory guidelines and the authority was satisfied there was not a pattern of problems with the carrier.
"They are the sort of things we would issue a request for corrective action for if we found them in a normal audit," Mr Gibson said.
"They are not the sorts of things we would take regulatory action over that would lead to grounding or anything like that."
Transair chief pilot Les Wright said it had been shown that the airline had not breached safety regulations.
"We are as keen as the next person to find out what has transpired. It is an absolute shame that the cockpit voice recorder didn't give more information," he said.
The ATSB found pilot-in-command Brett Hotchin had not completed "human factors" training - which hones emergency skills - since joining Transair in 2001, despite a company requirement he take it within six months of joining and every 15 months thereafter.
The company's operational manual also required the pilot and co-pilot to be endorsed for global positioning system approaches, but co-pilot Tim Downs was not qualified.
"There is not a breach ... they are internal things, it's like having a policy that pilots have to turn up each day with polished shoes and ties," Mr Wright said.
A final report on the crash is due out next year.
