Australia: 3,000 airline `events' kept under wraps

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

Thursday, May 25, 2000

3,000 airline `events' kept under wraps By JOSEPH KERR and ROBERT WAINWRIGHT

Qantas and Ansett aircraft were involved in almost 3,000 ``occurrences'' between January 1998 and February this year but the details may not be made public.

The director of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Mr Mick Toller, told a Senate Estimates Committee yesterday that he did not want to reveal the details because it would threaten co-operation between the airlines and the Government regulator.

The revelation emerged as more than 500 staff at the Qantas Jet Base in Sydney threatened industrial action over plans to send a particular engine to outside contractors for maintenance.

Mr Toller told the committee that the 2,946 occurrences included all reported events, from the most minor incident to major accidents.

Of these, 988 had been investigated and another 44 were still being examined.

Explaining his desire to keep the details under wraps, Mr Toller said: ``I wish to protect, in the same way as the Air Transport Safety Bureau wish to protect, the ability for us to have co-operation in investigations because I think that's a critical facet of flight safety.

``It's always been the issue that there be no blame.''

After Labor Senator Kerry O'Brien requested a detailed briefing on the occurrences from the ATSB, Mr Toller said the committee could view the material behind closed doors.

Meanwhile, the meeting of Qantas workers from four trade unions yesterday demanded that the company ``come clean'' over its plans for outsourcing maintenance.

Qantas last night confirmed that 19 engines used by seven 767-200s jets that fly domestic routes were involved in the program, but denied it would affect jobs.

A spokesman for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said

workers at Qantas were not prepared to tolerate the threat to job security and safety that contracting represents.

``They are determined to take a stand on this issue, and industrial action is a possibility.

``We want the company to meet us and explain what its plans are over the next three to five years in terms of outsourcing. The workers and the general public have a right to know.''

A spokesman for Qantas said the engines, model JT9D-7R4E and manufactured by the US firm Pratt and Whitney, were only a small part of its cache.

``We have more than 300 Rolls-Royce and General Electric engines for use on the other 96 jet aircraft in the fleet,'' he said.

``The in-house bid was successful when Qantas competitively tendered maintenance on the Pratt and Whitney engines about three years ago.

``Since then the economies of scale have changed and it is no longer viable to carry out maintenance on the small number of engines within Qantas compared with the increasing volume of other engines handled by the airline.''

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0005/25/national/national10.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 24, 2000


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