Priorities for further improving the safety of Australia’s aviation, maritime and rail industries have been featured in the ATSB’s new online initiative, Safety Watch, released today in conjunction with the Chief Commissioner’s blog, In Focus.
ATSB Chief Commissioner, Mr Martin Dolan, said that while the ATSB has not seen any overall increase in risk to Australia’s transport safety, the transport community should consider opportunities to make safe transport systems even safer.
“The priority areas are based on accident and incident trends the ATSB has observed from investigation findings and occurrence reports,” Mr Dolan said.
“For aviation, there are opportunities for improvement in operations ranging from general aviation to high capacity airlines. Some of the risk areas involve wirestrikes, low-level flying, fuel management, handling of approach to land, and data input errors.
“Marine work practices continue to be a priority area, particularly in or around ships and loading areas. In addition, we’ve identified concerns with the challenging environment of coastal pilotage.
“For rail, the ATSB sees opportunities to improve the safety of workers on railway tracks following several accidents that occurred when track maintenance work was being undertaken.
“The ATSB has launched Safety Watch to help improve the transport community’s awareness of these safety priorities,” Mr Dolan said. “It provides a specific briefing for each of the identified issues, describing what the priorities are, and what can be done to manage the risk.”
Safety Watch is available at www.atsb.gov.au/SafetyWatch
InFocus is available at www.atsb.gov.au/InFocus