The manufacturer’s quality system did not prevent non-conforming tie rods from being released for use on aircraft.
When approving the change in material for the manufacture of the replacement tie rods, the design engineer did not identify that the original parts had a life limitation, or that they had shown susceptibility to fatigue cracking. As a result, the engineer did not compare the fatigue performance of the alternative design to the original, and the replacement tie rods were manufactured to that design and released into service with an unknown fatigue life.
Debris originating from the starter failure was not contained by the starter casing and severed the number one engine B-sump oil scavenge pipe.
The Flight Crew Operating Manual procedure for crew comparison of the calculated Vref40 speed, while designed to assist in identifying a data entry error, could be misinterpreted, thereby negating the effectiveness of the check.
The applicability of a general requirement to conduct aviation risk assessments for complex, new, unusual or irregular activities was open to interpretation.
The LIZZI FIVE RWY 34 VICTOR ARRIVAL required a 3.5° descent profile after passing the SHEED waypoint for visual approach to runway 34 at Melbourne, increasing the risk of an unstable approach.
Unlike other Australian standard arrival routes that included a visual segment, the visual approach to runway 34 at Melbourne via the SHEED waypoint could be issued to super or heavy jet aircraft operated by foreign operators, despite there being more occurrences involving the SHEED waypoint than other comparable approaches.
The Virgin Australia procedures did not require its flight crews to, whenever practicable, announce flight mode changes.
Air traffic control did not, and was not required to provide traffic information to aircraft using adjacent runways and abeam each other during independent visual approach procedures at Sydney.
The presentation of the runway 34 visual approach in the operator's Route and Airport Information Manual increased the risk of the runway threshold crossing altitude being entered into the runway extension waypoint.
Qantas provided limited guidance on the conduct of a visual approach and the associated briefing required to enable the flight crew to have a shared understanding of the intended approach.
Accidents involving Robinson R44 helicopters without bladder-type tanks fitted result in a significantly higher proportion of post-impact fires than for other similar helicopter types. In addition, the existing United States regulatory arrangements are not sufficient to ensure all R44 operators and owners comply with the manufacturer's Service Bulletin SB-78B and fit these tanks to improve resistance to post-impact fuel leaks.
Many of the existing civil helicopter fleet are not fitted with a crash-resistant fuel system, or do not have an equivalent level of safety associated with post-impact fire prevention.
Although certification requirements for helicopters to include a crash-resistant fuel system (CRFS) were introduced in 1994, several helicopter types certified before these requirements became applicable are still being manufactured without a CRFS.
Controllers were routinely exposed to ‘not concerned’ radar tracks that were generally inconsequential in the en route environment, leading to a high level of expectancy that such tracks were not relevant for aircraft separation purposes. Training did not emphasise the importance of scanning ‘not concerned’ radar tracks in jurisdiction airspace.
The limited interoperability between The Australian Advanced Air Traffic System and Australian Defence Air Traffic System increased the risk of error due to the need for a number of manual interventions or processes to facilitate the coordination and processing of traffic.
There was a significant underreporting by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines Pty Ltd ATR72 terrain awareness warning system-related occurrences.
The convergence of many published air routes overhead Adelaide, combined with the convergence point being positioned on the sector boundary of the Augusta and Tailem Bend sectors, reduced the separation assurance provided by strategically separated one-way air routes and increased the potential requirement for controller intervention to assure separation.
All-engine go-arounds in modern air transport aircraft are often a challenging task when there is a requirement to level-off at a low altitude, and many pilots have had limited preparation for this task.
The company’s Required Navigation Performance approach procedure allowed the flight crew to set the approach minimum altitude in the auto-flight system prior to commencing the approach. This did not ensure the altitude alerting system reflected the assigned altitude limit of 7,000 ft and removed the defence of that alert when the flight crew did not identify the disengagement of the flight management computer-derived VNAV PTH mode.
