The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) did not have an effective process for assuring an authorisation would be unlikely to have an adverse effect on safety. As a result, CASA delegates did not use the available structured risk management process to identify and assess the risks, ensure appropriate and adequate mitigations were included as conditions of the approval, or assess the effects of changes on the overall risk.
Response by CASA
CASA did not accept the safety issue and contended that its process of risk assessment and decision-making in relation to the conduct of HEC operations in piston engine helicopters appropriately identified and mitigated the applicable risks as far as practicable. However, CASA acknowledged that its decision-making in relation to the issue of HEC approvals over time, and the applicable risk assessments could have been better documented. CASA also accepted that there was an absence of a structured and standardised approach to risk assessment and advised of the following proactive safety action.
If the revised process is conducted as documented, the safety issue should be addressed.
CASA implemented significant changes to its internal processes to ensure that the assessment and management of safety risks of new aviation activities (and associated approvals) were standardised in accordance with the CASA Risk Management Manual and that decision-making was appropriately documented. Additionally, CASA developed an ‘exemption protocol suite’ of documents, which detailed the principles, protocols and work instructions for CASA’s regulatory exemption process. CASA also completed and provided exemplar bowtie and aviation safety risk assessments using the structured process.
The ATSB welcomes CASA’s revised documented regulatory exemption process. If the process is conducted as documented, including the use of a structured risk management method, this should assure an adequate level of safety is achieved and documented when approving regulatory exemptions.
