The Manual of Air Traffic Services differed from the Civil Aviation Safety Regulation Part 172 Manual of Standards concerning the requirements for issuing a night visual approach to an instrument flight rules aircraft, increasing the risk of ambiguity in the application of these requirements by controllers.
The modifications to MATS made in the March 2013 revision introduced a new clause 2-10-430 that directly addressed this issue.
Airservices Australia (Airservices) advised that it did not consider that there was a misalignment between the Manual of Air Traffic Services (MATS) and the Civil Aviation Safety Regulation Part 172 Manual of Standards concerning the requirements for issuing a night visual approach to an instrument flight rules aircraft. However, Airservices advised that, as part of its regular review of the MATS, amendments were incorporated to improve its readability. Specifically, the updated MATS effective February 2014 will ensure that linkage descriptors for list point requirements are explicitly stated.
Although Airservices disagreed with the identified safety issue, the ATSB is satisfied that the action taken by Airservices has adequately addressed the safety issue.
