CASA is Aussie Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
source:Aussie (7 News) - New photos show the damage to the Qantas
plane. (Wed 10 Jan 2007, 06:54 PM)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070110/23/120t9.html
Photos show hole in
Qantas jumbo,By 7News
The(Aussie) federal Transport Minister has ordered a report into
why aviation authorities did not investigate a Qantas jumbo, which
flew with huge holes ripped in its fuselage.
Qantas Flight 5 blew a tyre on take-off from Singapore last
year and the debris tore holes in the side of the
plane.
When the incident was made public last night, Qantas angrily denied
the accuracy of a computer-aided reconstruction of the
damage.
But 7News has exclusively obtained photographic evidence of the
damage.
The shots show a one metre gash and a metre wide hole in
the underside of the 747.
The damage was to the fairings, a non-structural outer skin, as
confirmed by Alan Stray of the Air Transport Safety Bureau.
"No, it wasn't a big hole in the side of the aircraft per se," Mr
Stray said. "It was a fairing."
Former Civil Aviation Safety Authority Chairman
Dick Smith said the incident should have been investigated. It was
not.
Using reports from Qantas and German investigators, Australian
safety regulators ruled there was no danger to plane or
passengers.
"That's the nature of investigations around the world, that you
gather as much evidence as you can and make an assessment and
that's how we did it," Mr Stray said.
But Federal Transport Minister Mark Vaile has decided to reopen the
case.
"I've asked for a full report from the regulatory authorities in
Australia on what actually happened in Singapore and the action
that's been taken," Mr Vaile said.
Aviation regulators deny Dick Smith's claims that they are easy on
Qantas.
But CASA does admit that many of its safety investigations are
conducted in secret.
"The risk would be if we conducted all of our business, our safety
business, with airlines in public, is that the airlines would clam
up," CASA's Peter Gibson said.
2.If proper maintenancre were carried out,accidents are just
fate.
Buy to cover up any incidents are wrong.
3.Strait times today 11.Jan 2007,page 14,
Tilte:Qantas jet flew with hole in fuselage, by Roger Maynard ,in
Sygney,quoting Former Civil Aviation Safety Authority Chairman Dick
Smith,
.Flight QF 5,bound for Frankfurt,.....carrying 408 people on March
8 last year.....
But a former Chairman of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority ,Mr
Dick Smith,claimed that investigation often felt intimiated by
Qantas.
''Employees have told me if we stood up to Qantas,we wouldn't have
a career path''he said.
