The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating a fatal aviation accident involving a Cessna 310R aircraft, VH-FIN, which occurred near Tamworth, New South Wales at about 1.30 pm local time, 7 March 2005.

The ATSB will be conducting a media conference near the accident site at 1 pm today, 8 March. This will be the only onsite interview provided by the investigation team. All other interviews will be through the ATSB's central office, details below.

The media are invited to meet the investigator in charge at the front gate of the Rose Hill property, 7 km west of Tamworth on the New Winton Road.

When: 13:00 local time (NSW) today, 8 March 2005.

Where: Rose Hill property - 7 km west of Tamworth, New South Wales (accident site).

The ATSB has released a second interim factual report on the Piper Cheyenne accident on 28 July 2004 in which the pilot and five passengers died.

The ATSB has established that the aircraft diverged between 3.4 and 4 degrees left of the intended track between a point abeam Ulladulla and where it disappeared from radar.

The ATSB is conducting further tests of the modes and functionality of the GPS receiver type that was used on the aircraft, to determine if the flight path can be replicated with a copy of the data used by the pilot.

The damaged GPS data card has been sent to the Bureau d'Enqutes et d'Analyses (the French equivalent of the ATSB) for further detailed examination.

The air traffic control Route Adherence Monitoring (RAM) system issued three alerts that the aircraft had diverged from its planned track between Ulladulla and Benalla.

The air traffic control air situation display provides controllers with an automatically triggered alert when a variation is detected by radar, between the planned track and the actual track being flown.

The controllers' response to the RAM alerts is still being investigated.

The investigation is continuing.

The interim factual investigation report (200402797) is available from the website, or from the Bureau on request.

The ATSB has released a Preliminary Investigation Report into an 11 October 2004 Boeing 737 incident at Perth when the aircraft's tailskid struck the ground during the takeoff from runway 03.

The tailskid strike resulted in minor damage to the tailskid shoe at the rear lower fuselage. The crew and passengers were not injured.

The ATSB has classified this occurrence as a category 3 serious incident. The investigation is continuing and is analysing recorded weather information and data from the aircraft's flight data recorder.

Any necessary safety action that arises from the investigation will be recommended immediately and not held until the final report.

The ATSB report 200403868 is available from the website.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has been advised of a fatal aviation accident involving a Bell 206 Helicopter, VH-CSH, conducting locust control work, which occurred near Dubbo, New South Wales at about 2.30 local time today 22 November 2004.

The Bureau has been advised that regrettably, two occupants of the helicopter suffered fatal injuries, and a third occupant was seriously injured.

The ATSB will be conducting an on-site investigation.

All media contact to be directed to the ATSB's central office, details below.

The ATSB investigation into the fatal Piper Seneca accident on 11 November 2003, at Bankstown Airport has found that the aircraft banked right and speared into the ground during a go-around manoeuvre.

The aircraft was being operated on a multi-engine endorsement training flight with an instructor and student on board.

The aircraft was destroyed by impact forces and the post-impact fire. The student was fatally injured in the accident and the instructor received severe burns and died three and a half weeks after the accident.

The ATSB interim factual report finds that the engines were developing comparable levels of power and the propeller blade angles were consistent with the angle appropriate for the go-around phase of flight.

The investigation is continuing and will be clarifying some aspects with the aircraft manufacturer before finalising the draft report.

On 1 December 2003, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services signed an Instrument of Direction to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). That instrument directed the ATSB to `investigate the effectiveness of the firefighting arrangements for Bankstown Airport, as they affected transport safety at Bankstown Airport on 11 November 2003'. That investigation was conducted in conjunction with the accident investigation and a separate report (200305496) is expected to be issued in the next couple of months.

The interim factual report (200304589) is available from the website, or from the Bureau on request.

On 21 March 2003 the port main engine of the Australian cargo ship Searoad Mersey failed catastrophically leaving the vessel disabled in Bass Strait. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released its investigation report into the incident.

At 1612 on 21 March 2003, the roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel Searoad Mersey departed from Melbourne on a scheduled service to Devonport in Tasmania. By 1924 the ship had cleared Point Lonsdale and was heading in a south-easterly direction in Bass Strait.

At about 2118, the duty engineer received an engine room alarm and made his way to the engine room. During his subsequent inspection of the engine room, he found a main engine connecting rod lying on the deck on the inboard side of the port main engine. The port main engine had stopped and it was evident that there had been a catastrophic failure of one of the engine's piston assemblies.

A short time later the running main generator overheated and shutdown which caused the ship to black out. The generator had stopped as a result of the damage to the main engine which had caused a large loss of cooling water from the common cooling system.

By 2230, the ship's systems had been stabilised and the starboard main engine had been restarted. Searoad Mersey then proceeded back to Melbourne under its own power to arrive at Webb Dock in the morning of 22 March 2003.

The ATSB's report makes conclusions relating to the failure of Searoad Mersey's port main engine including:

• A casting flaw found in the piston skirt which failed initiated a fatigue crack which eventually caused the piston to fail in service.
• The vessel's maintenance system did not include a system for tracking the total operating hours of the main engine piston assemblies.
• The vessel's maintenance system did not include a procedure for crack testing the piston skirts in the areas stipulated by the manufacturer in a service bulletin.
• There was evidence to suggest that the engine type have had a history of piston skirt failures similar to that which occurred on Searoad Mersey.

The report also makes recommendations to the operators of Wartsila Vasa 32 engines and to Wartsila NSD in relation to the servicing of piston assemblies and the distribution of engine service bulletins.

Copies of the report may be downloaded from the website or obtained from the ATSB by telephoning 1800 020 616.

The ATSB has found that the third officer of the Panamanian tanker Port Arthur suffered a fracture of his cervical spine during a lifeboat drill on 20 October 2003. Three other crew in the lifeboat escaped serious injury when the boat fell 10 metres into Port Botany after its suspension hooks opened prematurely while it was being launched.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released its investigation report into the accident which concludes that the lifeboat's on-load release hooks had not been correctly reset when the boat was last lowered. Lack of effective maintenance had made the hooks difficult to reset and their design made it difficult for the crew to confirm whether or not the hooks were correctly reset.

The ATSB's report recommends that manufacturers of lifeboats and on-load release systems ensure that shipowners and operators of ships are advised of on-load release system incidents and that design changes are promulgated to all vessels fitted with their equipment. The report also recommends that manufacturers of on-load release systems ensure ships using their equipment are provided with detailed instructions for the operation and maintenance of those systems.

Since it was formed in 1999, the ATSB has issued reports on four previous lifeboat accidents, three of which were also associated with improperly reset on-load release hooks.

In September 2002 the ATSB released a safety bulletin on lifeboat accidents which was widely distributed to the maritime community as well as to the International Maritime Organization. The bulletin points out that:

Relatively complex designs, together with a poor understanding of their operation by ship's crews, insufficient maintenance and less than adequate manufacturer's instructions have led to the involuntary release of one or both hooks. The largest number of accidents, just over half of those reported, were caused by the unintentional release of hooks while on-load.

With regard to ship's safety management systems, the report recommends that shipowners, ship operators and International Safety Management accreditation authorities ensure that, with respect to crew training, maintenance and operational safeguards, such systems contain procedures commensurate with the considerable risks associated with lifeboat on-load release systems.

Copies of the report may be downloaded from the website or obtained from the ATSB by telephoning 1800 020 616.

In a pro-active move to reduce the number of collisions between trading ships and commercial fishing vessels on the Australian coast, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has launched an Australia-wide safety awareness campaign.

The campaign is designed to raise the awareness of commercial fishermen to the contributory factors which the ATSB has identified during its investigation of 21 collisions between trading ships and fishing vessels since 1990 that have ongoing relevance.

The aim of the campaign is to highlight some of the risks associated with fishing on the Australian coast. The ATSB is working closely with fishing industry peak bodies and officials in each state and territory to implement the campaign.

During the campaign, members of the ATSB's Marine Investigation Unit will be holding a series of informal face-to-face discussions with commercial fishermen in various fishing ports around the country to bring the contributory factors to the attention of the industry. The meetings will be held in major fishing ports around Australia over the next twelve months. The first meeting is scheduled to take place in the southern NSW port of Eden on 2 December 2004.

A series of informative articles will also be printed in commercial fishing industry magazines and newsletters, which will bring the ATSB's message to the attention of those fishermen who can't attend the meetings. The safety awareness articles will start to appear in the fishing industry magazines and newsletters early in the new year.

The ATSB will also be releasing a safety bulletin, which will discuss the Bureau's concerns. The safety bulletin will be sent to state/territory marine authorities and Registered Training Organisations (RTO), responsible for training fishermen in each state and territory, and it will be distributed during the meetings with the fishermen. It will also be able to be downloaded from the website.

Further information on the safety awareness campaign can be obtained by phoning the ATSB on 1800 621 372 or by emailing the Marine Investigation Unit at: marine@atsb.gov.au.

An ICAO audit of the ATSB has reported high satisfaction with Australia's legislative, organisational and training framework for aircraft safety investigation and the professional and efficient conduct of the ATSB investigations reviewed in detail.

The audit by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was sought by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau to ensure that the ATSB met international best practice for aviation accident and incident safety investigation.

The ICAO audit team 'commended the positive and professional approach of the ATSB in proactively seeking the audit' and made a number of very positive findings.

For example, the team 'was highly satisfied with the legislative and organizational framework established by Australia and the ATSB enabling the conduct of aircraft accident and incident investigations' in particular through the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and Regulations.

The ICAO team 'commended' the ATSB's 'very comprehensive training policy and programme' and, based on the two complex accident investigations audited, found: 'despite multiple difficult circumstances in each of the investigations reviewed, the investigators appeared to have managed the investigation tasks in a professional and efficient manner, consistent with the established standards and practices of the ATSB. Furthermore & safety issues were properly addressed and the processing of reports of the investigations was generally accomplished in a timely manner'.

As expected, the audit team did make a number of recommendations for improvement including regarding documentation, memoranda of understanding, post-accident medical testing, budgeting and number of investigations, investigator training, and occurrence reporting, against which the ATSB has submitted a corrective action plan.

These recommendations are being progressed with the Minister and internally. In transmitting the audit report, ICAO stated that it was 'pleased to advise that your (the ATSB's) proposed corrective action plan was found to be fully acceptable'.

The field stage of the ICAO audit was conducted in May/June 2004 and the final audit report was transmitted this month. In the interests of transparency, the full ICAO audit report is available from the website, or from the Bureau on request.

At the request of the Queensland Government, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has dispatched a team of Transport Safety Investigators to conduct an investigation into the Tilt Train Accident near Bundaberg which occurred in the early hours of 16 November 2004.

An initial team of three ATSB Transport Safety Investigators from Brisbane and Adelaide will be onsite this morning to commence the safety investigation.

The investigation will be run in conjunction with Queensland Transport.

Any person/witness with information about the derailment should contact the ATSB on 1800 020 616.