Meat on the bones

It is one thing to identify an “inappropriate regulatory stance” – it is entirely another task to remedy that by root and branch repair to ensure regulation matches risk.

By establishing a clear classification of operations policy that ensures that airline type standards are not applied to simple operations, there is much to be gained for both the regulator and the industry.

The regulator can free-up resources, reduce costs and make use of available industry expertise rather than being the out-of-touch, inexpert and high-cost regulator of recent years.

Industry can develop better ways of working with the regulator to focus on real safety issues, rather than paper chasing exercises removed from the actual hazards that are causing harm.

Win-win is now a very real proposition. Any review of the classification of operations should identify that aerial work operations are very different to passenger-carrying operations – with participants in a position to control the risks they accept and to improve likely safety outcomes.

This would enable the regulator to greatly simplify the regulations they write for the aerial work sector, focusing on minimum standards for safety, not the micro-management of specialised businesses in which the regulator may have little or no experience.

AAAA and CASA have been quietly working together over the last year to establish a sector risk profile for aerial agricultural operations. The agreed risks in this document will drive a tighter focus on genuine safety initiatives and provide a pathway for recognition of existing industry programs and the creation of new ones. This should be a model for all aerial work sectors.

A more cooperative approach to regulation could eventually see a greater role for professional associations such as AAAA being recognised by CASA for the risk reduction activities and programs they undertake.

Another benefit of agreed risks is the ability to benchmark existing and future regulation against the profile and ensure that regulation that does not achieve a safety outcome is removed.

Now it is time to move on to actually fixing the problems identified.

A good example is the current CASA approach to the appointment of a head of aircraft airworthiness and maintenance control – HAAMC. Despite an internal CASA legal ruling that such an appointment is not really required by the Act and that any such appointment to satisfy the requirement in Part 137 should be simple and next to automatic, at least one CASA office is persisting with a 10-page form to assess persons as ‘fit and proper’ for the role.

A future approach to this red tape nightmare would be to abolish the HAAMC requirements for aerial work altogether (the responsibilities are already adequately duplicated in the chief pilot, pilot, registered owner/operator and maintainer responsibilities) and encourage AAAA in its efforts to reintroduce its chief pilots course and integrate maintenance control training intothat course. A key mechanism would be for CASA to recognise such a course through its sector risk profile.

The same principle should apply to other programs such as AAAA’s professional pilot program for continuing professional development which has been running successfully since 2002.

And again for the AIMS program – Aerial Improvement Management System – that has independent external audit of the company’s safety management system as a keystone of its effectiveness. The mere fact that even small companies in aerial application can now have a sophisticated risk and safety management system shows that industry can often deliver real safety improvements at a fraction of the cost of government. All that is missing is the encouragement and formal recognition from CASA.

At the same time, the new CASA management team would do well to remove current rub points with industry by moving quickly to address the Part 61 fiasco by providing relief to trainers and others significantly impacted by this massive rule-set.

While the exemptions continue to come out to patch it up, the philosophical approach of Part 61 is fundamentally flawed in key areas – all of which industry warned CASA about over the last five years.

There is a massive task in front of CASA and industry to implement Deputy PM Truss’s reforms. However, many sectors have never stopped their safety efforts and AAAA looks forward to working cooperatively with a more mature regulator.