Qantas sticks by ban on using Lord Howe weatherman’s advice

Red tape is stopping Lord Howe Island’s only human weather vane from helping planes to land at one of the nation’s most dangerous runways.

Weatherman Clive Wilson at Lord Howe Island airport.

Qantas has reasserted its refusal to allow its pilots to use Lord Howe Island’s only human ­adviser for runway and weather conditions, saying it would continue to follow the effective ban set by the aviation safety regulator.

The Australian Transport and Safety Bureau has also said it will not investigate the hard landing of a turboprop Beechcraft King Air 200 on the island late last month, despite suggestions the banning of civil pilots from acting on advice from the harbour ­master may have contributed to the accident.

The aircraft, carrying five ­people, made a hard landing onto the tarmac, damaging a wing and propeller, after encountering a downdraft.

Experts said the plane would probably have to be shipped back to the mainland for repairs.

The ATSB had found the aircraft encountered no controllability issues upon landing. No one was injured.

The ATSB said it had reviewed the information and was not investigating. Lord Howe Island harbour master Clive Wilson had been providing on-the-ground weather advice to pilots coming in to land at one of the most dangerous airports under the Australian flag since 1956 until the Civil Aviation Safety Authority refused to renew his licence in 2012 unless he spent $20,000 completing a new meteor­ological course.

Mr Wilson, who is a volunteer, has been unable and unwilling to meet that requirement and the ­result is fewer resources available to pilots, which many see as red tape putting lives at risk.

Veteran former Qantas pilot Bill Hamilton, who said he had flown into Lord Howe under the instruction of Mr Wilson many times over the years, said CASA’s action was “mindless bureaucracy” taking over common sense.

“It most certainly affects safety, Lord Howe is a very difficult place to land and I know from personal experience you have to be very, very careful going in and out of there,” Mr Hamilton said.

The ATSB, responsible for ­investigating crashes, said it ­received “over 15,000 notifications annually”, had “limited resources” and would investigate only those accidents “which have the greatest potential for improving transport safety”.

“In this particular case, after carefully reviewing the information provided by the operator and taking into consideration the local conditions a decision was made not to investigate,” an ATSB spokesman said.

Qantas said it was “comfortable” with the weather bureau ­information provided to its pilots, but declined to comment further. CASA said Mr Wilson was “free to make broadcasts” but pilots “cannot rely upon this information”.

Mr Wilson said given the ­extreme weather conditions on Lord Howe, the two BoM automatic weather information service stations at the airport often contradicted each other.

Eastern Air Services, the operator of the damaged Beechcraft King Air, did not respond to ­repeated requests for comment when contacted by The Australian.