The Federal Government has responded to the recommendations made by the Senate inquiry into the Pel-Air Norfolk island ditching investigation.
In a statement released by Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Warren Truss yesterday, the government said it accepted 20 of the 26 recommendations made by the Senate.
“The Government has agreed to 20 of the 26 recommendations in the report, with a further four of the recommendations being matters for consideration by the independent safety agencies concerned,” Truss said.
“Key recommendations that the Government has agreed to include improvements to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's (ATSB) investigative and reporting policies and procedures, and the establishment of better and more transparent information sharing and governance arrangements between the ATSB and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).
“A number of initiatives have already been implemented to address many of the recommendations in the report."
However, the government has rejected calls to recover the flight data recorders and to re-open the ATSB investigation, two key aims of holding the Senate inquiry in the first place.
According to the response, recovering the data recorders would be costly and reveal no data that was not available through other sources, and whether or not the investigation should be re-opened was left up to the ATSB.
Dominic James, the pilot fingered by the ATSB report as being responsible for the November 2009 ditching, says the government's response falls short of what is required to make significant change.
"I am concerned this response doesn't go far enough," he told Australian Flying. "My aim was that the truth behind how the ATSB report was compiled be found, and I believe the Senate inquiry did that. Questions over the conduct of CASA and the ATSB have been answered.
"But finding answers and making concrete changes aren't the same thing.
"There are some positives, but the fundamental recommendations have been let go, chiefly the one that called for the ATSB report to be rewritten.
"The government should have embraced all the recommendations. This was a landmark Senate inquiry in terms of its scope and the expertise, and I think the government should have listened more."
For James, who has long maintained the stance that the ATSB report overlooks the significance of deficiencies at Pel-Air, Truss' response yesterday is not the end of his campaign.
"I'm going to keep pushing until the ATSB report is rewritten. How can you have a reports that says Pel-Air was compliant when they were in fact responsible for regulatory breaches.
"You can't have one government document [the ATSB report] saying one thing and another [a CASA audit of Pel-Air] saying the opposite. How did Pel-Air escape any meaningful action being taken against them?"
Truss's statement and the full government response to the RRAT recommendations are available from the Department of Infrastructre and Transport website.