Maintenance constitutes a significant and rising cost to the airline industry. In the USA, maintenance costs are increasing as a proportion of airline operating costs. In 1989 maintenance constituted 11 -8% of US airline operating costs or greater than US$S billion per year (Shepherd 1991). The annual cost to the Australian airline industry is likely to be in the order of A$500 million per year.

During 1992 and 1993 there was an increase in the frequency of reported occurrences involving co-ordination between Australian and Indonesian ATS. Although some involved aircraft travelling from Australia to Indonesia, the majority (92%) involved aircraft travelling from Indonesian airspace into the Australian FIR. The CAA Australia and the Indonesia Directorate General of Air Communications are signatories on a LOA between the two countries. This LOA supplements ICAO documents in respect to separation standards and co-ordination procedures and is - updated periodically. The latest update was…

The regional airline industry is an integral part of the Australian air transport system, and is particularly important in rural and remote areas. The industry has a major role in supplementing the high capacity airlines and providing feeder services into the capital cities. The accident rate for regional airlines has remained relatively stable since 1990, although it is higher than the rate for high capacity air transport. Partly as a result of a small number of highly publicised fatal accidents involving regional airlines, there has been considerable debate about safety standards within…

On 24 December 1995 an Australian ibis was ingested into the engine of an Airbus A300 on takeoff from Coolangatta Airport. The damage to the engine was extensive. Bird strikes are a continual hazard for aircraft operations, particularly during the take-off and landing phases. The Bureau's database contains the birdstrike reports shown in appendix 1, tables IA, 1 B and 1 C for the years 1993, 1994 and 1995. It should be noted that the requirement for reporting birdstrike occurrences which did not involve aircraft damage was terminated in 1991. Prior to 1991 all bird-strike occurrences were…

The carriage of traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) equipment is not mandatory in Australian aircraft. However, many Australian and foreign registered aircraft operating in Australian controlled airspace are equipped with TCAS because of their compliance with a US requirement when operating in American airspace. A total of 157 TCAS-related air safety occurrences were reported in Australian airspace during 1993 and 1994. The circumstances of these events, and the views of the pilots and air traffic controllers involved in the occurrences, were examined in detail. Early versions of TCAS…

In December 1995, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure (HORSCOTCI) published its "Plane Safe" report, an inquiry into safety in the general aviation and commuter sectors of the aviation industry. Recommendation (e) of the report was that: "the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation prepare and publish safety indicators;" In response to that recommendation this report has been produced jointly by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) and the…

Aviation Safety Indicators (ASI) was first published in December 1996 as a response to the recommendation to '...prepare and publish safety indicators' contained in the 'Plane Safe' report issued by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure. AS1 is produced jointly by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation and the Department of Transport and Regional Development. The first report brought together a wide range of data, primarily for the decade from 1986 to 1995, which set benchmarks for on-going…

Changes to the airspace management system which were introduced on the 12th of December 1991, firmly established the responsibility with the pilot for aircraft collision avoidance outside controlled airspace, and for avoiding penetration of controlled airspace. In doing so it was a radical modification to the Australian Air Traffic Services (AS) system. In view of significance of the changes, the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) undertook an evaluation. This evaluation took the form of the investigation of all occurrences which were deemed to be related to the AMATS changes in a four…

This report documents a six-month study to develop a framework of societal costs of aircraft accidents in Australia for the purpose of assisting the Department of Aviation in relating costs and benefits in resource management decisions and for assisting the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation in the management of aviation safety promotion programs. A detailed set of unit and total cost estimates for Australian 1980 is presented together with a literature review and recent work on approaches to valuing human life. Two cost components, fatalities and aircraft hull damage/loss, account for about…

The Australian Air Traffic Service (ATS) system provided by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is responsible for the provision of a safe, efficient, and cost effective air traffic control and advisory service to the aviation industry within domestic and international (oceanic) airspace. This BASI study conducted during 1992 was aimed at understanding the organisational factors and system characteristics, and the underlying failures which lead to certain ATS occurrences. BASI's endeavour was to provide the CAA with a method which would allow the cause of a particular problem to be tracked…