An ATSB report published yesterday has isolated 18 safety themes in Australia's aerial firefighting culture.
The ATSB compiled the report after conducting interviews with 11 firefighting agencies and nine operators from every state and territory as part of an ongoing safety study.
ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said the interviews formed part of a safety study aiming to assess the escalating risk environment faced by aerial firefighting operators in Australia.
“Aerial assets are playing a growing, and increasingly important role in fire prevention and control in Australia,” he said.
“It is therefore important we understand the risk controls in place, and consider how effective these controls can be as the airspace above firegrounds gets busier, and the size and variety of aircraft increases.
“The information gathered during these interviews will form part of our analysis as we develop findings, and consider recommendations for governments, agencies and operators.”
After analysing the feedback from the interviews, the ATSB was able to identify safety issues covering:
- safety culture including leadership, reporting, just culture and flexibility
- standardisation across organisations
- informed risk management
- pressure to fly
- transfer of risk responsibility
- aircraft co-ordination
- fireground communication
- training and aviation proficiency in agency staff
- pilot performance
- tasking and risk identification
- monitoring changing conditions
- risk tolerance and normalisation
- commercial pressure.
- ATSB investigators found very disparate feedback from agencies and aircraft operators, meaning themes were not necessarily common to all agencies.
"There was wide variation in interviewees’ perceptions of fire agencies in the safety themes identified," investigators conclude. "For any safety theme, therefore, it was not possible to characterise all fire agencies in the same way.
"Agency representatives and operators sometimes had opposing views on the extent to which a safety aspect was being achieved, for example regarding safety culture and a pressure to fly."
However, some comments have lead the ATSB to conclude that some agencies may not have a positive safety culture, with interviewees singling out a lack of a just, learning, reporting, informed and flexible culture.
Feedback to the ATSB also indicated that most of the interviewees supported a positive safety culture within firefighting agencies.
Risk management issues also featured regularly in interview feedback, highlighting problems with transfer of risk, pressure to fly, risk identification and conditions monitoring, and normalisation of risk and risk tolerance.
The ATSB also identified an expressed desire for standard policies and procedures across different firefighting agencies and jurisdictions.
“This desire was expressed in relation to aircraft coordination, communication, training, pilot performance, and the identification of risk and monitoring of changing conditions,” Mitchell explained.
Mitchell also stated that the themes identified in the report suggest interviewees believe Australia’s fire agencies need to play a greater role in risk management and ongoing risk monitoring.
The full report is on the ATSB website. [url: https://www.atsb.gov.au/investigations/