ATSB’s warning to pilots on risky flights: ‘Don’t push it, don’t go’

A new safety campaign for ­pilots will be launched next week following this week’s Angel Flight crash report.

The ATSB has delivered its final report on the Angel Flight crash at Mount Gambier in South Australia that killed three people on June 28, 2017. Picture: Tom Huntley

A new safety campaign urging ­pilots “don’t push it, don’t go” will be launched next week by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau following this week’s Angel Flight crash report.

That report found pilot Grant Gilbert should never have taken off from Mount Gambier on June 28, 2017, due to low-lying cloud and the fact he was only visually flight-rated. His TB-10 Tobago was airborne for just 70 seconds before the crash that killed him and his passengers, Tracy Redding and daughter Emily.

It was the second fatal Angel Flight crash in six years, with the previous triple-fatality accident in 2011 occurring in similar circumstances.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said the bureau’s finding that Angel Flight services were seven times more likely to result in a fatality than other private flights showed more needed to be done to improve safety.

“We have absolutely no barrow to push; we’re not anti-Angel Flight, we’re simply saying that the data is telling us something,” Mr Hood told The Australian.

“We’ve got two triple fatalities, you’ve got next of kin who are incredibly upset and we think that better things can be done in the sector.”

He admitted to being “taken aback” by the response from Angel Flight CEO Marjorie Pagani that the final report provided little in the way of useful guidance. She criticised the recommendation that Angel Flight consider booking commercial flights where available as an alternative to using volunteer private pilots, and said there was no advice given to pilots flying in poor weather.

Mr Hood said the best guidance the ATSB could provide was the message of their “don’t push it, don’t go” campaign.

“If the weather’s not suitable, you shouldn’t be flying,” he said.

“I don’t know how many times we’ve run these campaigns over the years, but pilots who are only rated to fly under visual conditions have continued to get themselves in trouble.”

The Australian understands as many as 100 incidents of pilots becoming spatially disoriented in cloud have been reported to the ATSB in the past decade, resulting in 21 fatalities.

Crossbench senator Rex Patrick said he would continue to push for new regulations imposed on Angel Flight by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to be reversed, despite the finding that the community service operation had a higher fatality risk than other private flights.

“Angel Flight uses experienced pilots and safe aircraft,” Senator Patrick said. “There is no difference in the safety case associated with a CASA-certified pilot flying a mate to the footy in Melbourne and a CASA-certified pilot flying someone to chemotherapy in Melbourne except the ill patient is more aware of the qualifications of the pilot and the risks associated with a flight.”

But the ATSB argued that transporting patients to medical appointments carried greater responsibility and pressure, which had led to pilots taking off in unsuitable conditions.

Transport safety director Stuart Godley said it was important that pilots were trained how to recognise those pressures and deal with them, “rather than leave them alone to make those decisions in the heat of the moment”.