Toll recency for night vision imaging system (NVIS) winching was insufficient to ensure that complex NVIS winching operations, such as in this occurrence, could be conducted safely.
The new requirements introduced by TOLL will ensure that pilots experience a complex NVIS winch every 6 months. This is likely to increase to pilot currency for complex NVIS winch and therefore likely to reduce the likelihood of pilots experiencing excessive workload leading to a loss of control, or reduce the severity of such an occurrence.
In addition to existing NVIS recency and NVIS winching recencies, Toll have implemented an additional six-monthly recency requirement for NVIS winching in complex terrain, one of which is supervised by a Training and Checking pilot.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has advised that they will review the NVIS recency requirements. Consideration will be given to aligning with instrument flight recency (3 iterations in 90 days) and look at operational recency for winching and overwater SAR which will most likely require 3 iterations in 90 days.
