CASA and the FAA part ways on a serious safety issue regarding action taken following reports of frayed elevator control cables on Bonanzas.
“Two men say they’re Jesus; one of them must be wrong,” – ‘Industrial Disease’, Dire Straits.
How is it we have a situation where two aviation regulators in two different countries can take such opposite paths on the same issue? You would think that as the air in both countries is the same and the aeroplanes are the same, the regulators would respond to a safety issue in the same manner. Not so CASA and the FAA!
It started in January when CASA received reports of frayed elevator control cables on Bonanzas. This was serious stuff! A loss of elevator command mid-flight is enough to make you start wishing you’d spent more time with your loved ones. The klaxons sounded in Canberra and CASA immediately went to action stations, releasing an AD that demanded inspection within 60 days and replacement of any cables found frayed or any cables over 15 years old, frayed or not.
Both Hawker Beechcraft and the Federal Aviation Administration in the US dawdled with the alert, preferring instead to issue a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) to have the cable checked at the next 100-hourly. What a contrast compared with CASA’s reaction! Our regulator, however, pushed on with the Australia-specific AD regardless.
But who was right? If the CASA reaction was correct, then the FAA under-reacted and there is a serious safety issue in the States that they are ignoring. If the FAA response was the most appropriate, then CASA has slapped some seriously unnecessary costs on Bonanza owners.
From my vantage point here on top of the fence, I can see the case for CASA being in the right, supported by the fact that further frayed cables were found when the inspections were done, including in the aircraft owned by Australian Bonanza Society President Mark Davey.
Not surprisingly, Davey and the ABS acknowledged the safety issue in a response posted on their website www.abs.org.au, with Davey stating he was personally pleased CASA did what they did. It is a huge endorsement of the AD from people who probably know Bonanzas better than the regulator.
But the endorsement comes with a cooler – with Davey saying perhaps a more appropriate response from CASA would have been the FAA path.
And what of the 15-year replacement demand? CASA has stated that prior research suggested the limit, but the matter may be reconsidered in light of Hawker Beechcraft releasing a procedure for inspection. If the limit is withdrawn, it may prevent a lot of perfectly good elevator cables from being trashed. What it won’t do is settle the matter of whether CASA over-reacted or the FAA didn’t give the issue the urgency it demanded.
Some time ago CASA indicated it would not be releasing ADs in Australia that were not adopted by the regulator in the country that first certified the aircraft (in the majority of cases, the FAA). Naturally we couldn’t expect that to stick if CASA honestly thought there was a safety issue.
However, in doing so isn’t CASA basically saying that they – and not the FAA – are the experts? A big call to make given that Bonanzas were made and certified in the US, and that country is the repository of Beechcraft expertise.
Hopefully the FAA won’t be proven wrong, because the most likely way for that to happen is if US Bonanzas start drilling holes in the dirt.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch
