The reporter expressed a safety concern related to the methods of advising employees of amendments to flying procedures.
The reporter advised that revised technical information was sent to flight crew using email which is outside the regulatory framework of Flight Standing Orders, raising doubt as to the validity of the information. The information related to amendments to the terrain ‘escape procedures’ (routing and altitude requirements, in the event of performance loss [engine failure] /emergency descent [depressurisation]).
Reporter comment: This flight crew member is unsure if an operation was conducted with incorrect documentation, as e-mail is not part of the operational documentation suite.
The subject of out of date A330 Escape Charts was brought to the attention of Manager Technical Pilot at about 1345 hrs on [date]. Manager Technical Pilot was advised that the newer charts, which had included recent waypoint name changes, had not been added to the A330 Charts Manual. Note that the fundamental procedures were unchanged, the amendment was required because of waypoint name changes. The process required to issue a Flight Standing Order (FSO) would not have resulted in timely release of the corrected document, particularly as there were scheduled A330 departures expected later that afternoon. The decision was then made to:
- Notify the Airbus Fleet Manager
- Notify Flight Dispatch so that all A330 services requiring access to the updated Charts Manual were notified
- Release the updated A330 Charts manual via company email attachment to all A330 Flight Crew (this was done at 1442 local)
- Required a company issued NOTAM to be raised for the attention of all A330 Flight Crew
- Required that the A330 Charts Manual be distributed first thing Monday morning (date) via the operator’s iPad application.
CASA has reviewed the REPCON and can confirm that the airline implements procedure in providing operational information to flight crew in line with regulatory requirements, and CASA is satisfied with the provided response in the REPCON.