Many of you have watched my previous sessions with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority as I question them on how much risk mandates introduced into the cockpit.
I was shocked to find out in a question on notice (they actually do come back with an answer eventually) that CASA’s medical systems don’t even have the ability to track adverse events or injuries. Whenever they’ve told me there’s no data to indicate a problem, it’s because they don’t have any data. They’re literally flying blind.
It seems because a pilot hasn’t had a stroke and crashed a plane yet, CASA thinks there’s ‘nothing to see here’. This level of negligence should be criminal.
“QANTAS Incidents to be verified” (click to view)
List of QANTAS incidents
QANTAS B737
17/5/23
QF703 B737 Cairns-Brisbane
Engine damage, air return on one engine, PAN emergency declared. (Media reported)
5/5/23
QF 102 B737 Nandi – Sydney – engine surge and stall. PAN emergency declared into Sydney .. (Media reported)
23/4/23
Qantas B737 Melbourne – Perth forced to return due to fumes of uninown origin in the cockpit. PAN emergency declared, pilots on oxygen. (Media reported).
15/3/23
Qantas 737 experiences ‘engine overheat’ on start up at Ayers Rock. Engine fire bottle fired. Fire crews called, shutdown and precautionary disembarkation carried out. Thermal Imaging revealed hot spot in engine. (No Media Reports)
20/1/23
A Qantas B737 arrives at the gate in Brisbane. Engineer notices smoke emanating from the engine and finds zero oil quantity. Oil had been expelled on approach and engine minutes from critical damage. No emergency declared. (No media reports).
20/1/23
Qantas B737 QF430 Melbourne-Sydney turns back with insufficient thrust (unable to reach target) on one engine. (Media Reports)
19/1/23
QF144 B737 Auckland – Sydney. Engine failure. Flight continued to Sydney on one engine. PAN emergency declared. (Media Reported)
19/1/23
QF 101 Qantas B737 Sydney-Fiji forced to turn back with erroneous airspeed indicators. (Media Reported)
10/2/19
Qantas 737 Port Moresby – Brisbane diverts to Cairns with air conditioning issues. On attempted departure following rectification, engine overheat indication results in passenger tarmac evacuation (Media Reports)
A330
October 2022
Perth-Sydney
Engine severe damage. Operated at reduced thrust. White hot molten metal fragments collecting under engine cowl on shutdown.
15/12/19
Qantas A330 returns to Sydney after experiencing hydraulic fault. This caused fumes and smoke in the cabin with discomfort and distress to the passengers. Emergency evacuation on arrival. (ATSB report).
1/6/18
Qantas A330 Sydney – Bangkok. High Engine vibration. Air return to Sydney on one engine . PAN emergency declared. (ATSB report)
14/4/18
QF123 Brisbane-Auckland -Qantas A330 engine surge and high vibration. (ATSB report).
QANTAS A380
23/12/23
QF 1 Singapore London A380 forced to divert to Azerbaijan due to erroneous cargo fire indication.
QANTASLINK B717
20/1/23
QLink B717 flight QF1516 air returns to melbourne with flap retraction problem on departure (Media reports).
3/6/22
Qantaslink B717 Melbourne-Newcastle suffers engine failure and air return. PAN emergency declared. (Media Reports)
10/3/18
QantasLink B717 flight QF1799 Alice Springs-Brisbane suffers engine failure on takeoff. PAN emergency declared, air return. Media reports first officer suing Qantas group for damages due to poor maintenance.
QANTASLINK DASH-8
29/1/23
Qantaslink dash – 8 Sydney-Coffs harbor forced to air return with landing gear problem (media reports)
FOKKER 100 – Qantas ‘Network’ WA.
24/1/23Fokker 100 Perth – Kalgoorlie returns to Perth with engine trouble. PAN emergency declared.
22/1/23
737 engine overtemps with no response to thrust lever, then fails on the ramp on taxi out.
8/3/23
737 inflight shutdown due to oil filter bypass
25/4/23
Also an A330 in April this year, engine failure at 200 feet on final approach. Was signed back into service and failed again two days later on descent passing 20,000 feet. Same engine failed twice in three days,
11/5/23
Yet another QF 737 inflight shutdown has just been revealed, on descent due to fuel leak.
Also 16/5/23
A330 dumps all its hydraulic fluid on taxi out in Perth.
Transcript
Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again tonight. Ms Spence, are you or any of your executive management or your board members the beneficiaries of any benefits given from any airlines here in Australia?
Ms Spence: No. If we received any hospitality or gifts or anything like that, we would declare it. I am certainly not a beneficiary. Can you repeat that phrase again?
Senator Roberts: Beneficiary of any benefits gifted from any airlines here in Australia?
Ms Spence: Only what we would report in our gifts register.
Senator Roberts: What are they?
Ms Spence: I can’t think of anything that has been. I can say that I haven’t. Certainly if any of my executive team had, it would be reported. As far as I am aware, nothing has been reported.
Senator Roberts: Can you please take it on notice to provide a list detailing anything CASA representatives have received?
Ms Spence: Yes. Mr Marcelja: It’s on our website.
Ms Spence: It will be on our website. Yes, of course we can.
Senator Roberts: So are you going to do that, Ms Spence?
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. What is the definition of ‘subclinical ‘?
Mr Marcelja: I’m not a medical expert of that type.
Senator Roberts: Kate Manderson is not here again?
Ms Spence: The request only came to us yesterday asking us to come to Senate estimates. She was travelling overseas on official duties and so is unable to be here this evening.
Senator Roberts: Chair, I want to put on the record that we asked about two weeks before the previous Senate estimates. We asked several weeks before this Senate estimates. That is twice we have asked for Kate Manderson because of her role as a senior medical officer.
Chair: Senator Roberts, just get your office to send copies of that to the committee.
Ms Spence: Senator, while I’ve got you, one thing I probably should have mentioned, of course, is a number of the executive team would get lounge membership by the airlines. I will provide on notice who has those memberships. For example, I have a chairman’s lounge membership.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. Who is responsible, Mr Marcelja, for passenger safety with regard to pilot and medical health evaluation and monitoring in Australia?
Mr Marcelja: We conduct medical certification, as we have spoken about before.
Senator Roberts: Is there any other department, agency or organisation, either domestically or
internationally, that has legal authority, responsibility, jurisdiction, oversight or liability over Australian pilot and passenger safety?
Mr Marcelja: Senator, I would imagine that employers have obligations to pilots. When it comes to the certification of pilots and whether they are fit to fly, that is our accountability.
Senator Roberts: Apart from private company employers, no government agency, department or
organisation?
Mr Marcelja: When it comes to determining whether a pilot is fit to fly, that is our remit. Our remit is
aviation safety and the medical certification that would support aviation safety.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. It’s fair to say the buck stops with CASA?
Mr Marcelja: Within the scope that I described, yes.
Senator Roberts: Your website says that CASA uses multi-crew endorsements as a means of risk
mitigation. Their use enables pilots to continue flying despite the presence of medically significant conditions which would otherwise pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of air navigation. How many pilots with a medically significant condition are currently flying passengers under the CASA restriction which could result in a pilot being incapacitated?
Mr Marcelja: There is a requirement for most airline aircraft, as you would know, to have two pilots. That extends to safety that goes well beyond medicine. I am not sure exactly what your question is.
Senator Roberts: I want to know how many pilots cannot fly alone.
Mr Marcelja: I can take that on notice. It would be a very small number.
Senator Roberts: Can you please provide on notice how many multi-crew endorsements CASA has issued by year over the last five years?
Ms Spence: We can take on notice just to see if that data is available.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. How did you evaluate the aeromedical implications of the pilots taking the new MRNA technology injections, COVID injections, at low atmospheric conditions?
Mr Marcelja: We would not have made any evaluation of that.
Senator Roberts: No evaluation. In an aeromedical context, do you consider that you have any additional responsibility to evaluate or at least surveil a new medical technology that only has provisional approval?
Mr Marcelja: No, Senator, we don’t.
Senator Roberts: But you told me you have responsibility for aero health monitoring?
Mr Marcelja: When we evaluate a medicine, we look at the potential significance of that medicine on a pilot. We don’t test it. We rely on medical authorities to test whether medicines are suitable for use. We look at the implications for medicines in an aeromedical context. As we have spoken many times before, when it comes to vaccinations, we treat vaccinations all the same. With a vaccination that is approved for use in the population, we simply ask that pilots stand down from flying duties for 24 hours to make sure that there is no adverse reaction to it. If there are reactions beyond that, we would expect them to report it and stand down.
Senator Roberts: Are you aware that there is a COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation scheme in operation in Australia now?
Mr Marcelja: I will take your word for it.
Senator Roberts: So you weren’t aware of it?
Mr Marcelja: No.
Senator Roberts: I wonder what it is for.
Mr Marcelja: You tell me.
Senator Roberts: People have been injured or killed by these injections. You mentioned that they have to stand down for 24 hours.
Mr Marcelja: We do not have a role, as I think we have spoken about on many occasions, regarding the health implications of vaccinations on the Australian population. That is a matter for the Department of Health.
Senator Roberts: You are solely responsible for the fact that—
Mr Marcelja: We are solely responsible for determining whether there is an aviation safety risk. I can categorically tell you that it is our view there is no aviation safety risk from the vaccinations.
Ms Spence: As we have said repeatedly, we have not had a single incident involving an adverse reaction to a COVID vaccination by a pilot.
Senator Roberts: Are you aware that last year, 2022, there were more than 30,000 deaths after the vaccines were introduced for the whole of the year?
Ms Spence: That has nothing to do with us.
Senator Roberts: Let’s continue. It’s not of interest to you?
Ms Spence: To be honest— Senator Roberts: They are temporally correlated with the injections.
Ms Spence: I genuinely feel that we have nothing to add to the line of questioning.
Senator Roberts: Let’s continue, then. In February 2022, in a Zoom meeting with Virgin pilots, CASA principal medical officer Kate Manderson stated that the provisionally approved mRNA vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis but that she would rather pilots got those conditions from the vaccine rather than COVID itself, which she claimed to be of a higher risk. What evidence did Kate Manderson have to substantiate these comments?
Mr Marcelja: We categorically can tell you that there is no aviation safety risk that we consider is associated with COVID vaccination.
Senator Roberts: Yet Kate Manderson, your senior medical officer, says that the vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis.
Ms Spence: I expect that what she was saying is that you may. The bigger issue is that there is a greater chance of those sorts of impacts if someone actually got COVID. Again, I would definitely want to see that quote in a broader context. I think reading something like that out could be potentially quite misleading.
Senator Roberts: You are saying that without hearing it?
Ms Spence: I am saying that without seeing the whole context in which the statement was made.
Senator Roberts: We’ll get it to you.
Ms Spence: That would be great. Thanks, Senator.
Senator Roberts: I want to know what medical evidence Kate Manderson had that can substantiate her comments.
Ms Spence: Okay.
Senator Roberts: Take it on notice?
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: I asked you on notice at SQ23-003393 to provide me with the rates of significant diseases over the previous five years for the following conditions—pericarditis and myocarditis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, capillary leak syndrome, Guillain-Barre syndrome, any cardiac related conditions or injuries and any immune related conditions or injuries. These are recognised adverse reactions to COVID-19 injections. The injection manufacturers and the medical authorities have acknowledged this. You completely failed to answer one of them for any year. Your response to me was that your medical record system does not even capture information on these diseases in a way that can be accurately reported.
Ms Spence: That’s correct.
Senator Roberts: I am struggling to understand how you have not been misleading in your previous evidence. Over many sessions, you have maintained to me that there have been no safety signals or concerns about COVID vaccination, yet I am only now finding out that your medical record system does not even have the capacity to report on some of the most significant adverse events to COVID vaccination. How can you maintain there’s nothing in the data to indicate a concern when you don’t have the data and you’re literally flying blind?
Ms Spence: We haven’t had any incidents associated with COVID vaccination. There is no data because there are no incidents. I am sorry, Senator. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.
Senator Roberts: But you can’t measure this?
Ms Spence: We haven’t had an incident to measure it with, though, Senator.
CHAIR: I am loathe to do this. Senator Roberts, I could go to the standing orders. I can’t remember the number, but it’s known as tedious repetition. I know you have been asking these questions in and out. I do not know how anyone in CASA can explain to you any more that they don’t have any more evidence. You have the call, Senator Roberts. Senator McDonald is waiting patiently as well. We have all waited patiently all day, so keep going.
Senator Roberts: Does CASA still maintain that it is unaware of any pilot grounded with a COVID vaccine injury?
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: I find that hard to believe given the rates of adverse events that are huge and startling. No pilots have it but every other category of citizen does. What supervision of Qantas engine trend monitoring is undertaken by CASA given that there have been a significant number of incidents over the near past?
Ms Spence: Is this about issues regarding turnarounds with Qantas aircraft?
Senator Roberts: It is air incidents. Can I table this, Chair?
Chair: Yes, of course.
Ms Spence: If what I understand is correct, you are talking about some of the media coverage on the number of turnarounds because of potential concerns with aircraft safety. We have done an analysis over a 10-year time frame saying that there has been no material increase in the number or severity of air turn-back type occurrences in 2023 to date.
Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could tell me on notice whether or not the list I have just given you from a whistleblower is normal or abnormal.
Ms Spence: Certainly I would be happy to do that. As I said, based on the analysis that we have done, there hasn’t actually been any material increase in the number or severity of air turn-backs. That is on the analysis we have done. I will take that on notice, based on the list you have just provided us.
Senator Roberts: This is a list of incidents that I have tabled that has been provided to me. Can you please verify if those have been reported or lodged with CASA? Do it on notice.
Ms Spence: Based on my quick scan, these are all ones that we are aware of. I don’t think that would change what I have just told you about no material increase in the number or severity of air turn-back type occurrences. But I will—
Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could have a look at it in detail first before making a comment.
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: I would like to know whether this is surprising or normal.
Ms Spence: I think that’s what I was just telling you based on—
Senator Roberts: I understand. I would like to know once you’ve had a look at it, not before you’ve had a look at it. I would be surprised if it’s normal. Thank you, Chair.
Yes, criminal negligence. The public wants assurance that pilot health conditions are monitored effectively – they have the lives of hundreds of people in their hands with every shift
I’m dumbstruck by the insistence that there’s no data because there’s been no incidences (caused by Covid injections). This is backwards. The role of CASA is to prevent incidences by identifying and investigating risks. This should happen in advance. Preventative action is what air safety is all about. That’s appalling, yet another example of regulatory agencies not doing their jobs to the fullest, rather merely some kind of minimum acceptable level.
Pilots may be afraid to report a health problem that according to the TGA, CASA and the Political Government dose not and cannot exist! Any sign of a problem there, and every Jabbed pilot would have to have their license suspended (or lost permanently). Hence nobody wants to know about it (if and until, God forbid, a tragedy occurs). Then the coverups go into high gear to try and calm the flying public.