King turns up heat on aviation watchdog

Annette King

Senior members of the Civil Aviation Authority's board have been asked to front up at the Beehive as the Government decides whether leadership changes are needed at the watchdog.

Transport Minister Annette King returned from overseas yesterday and went straight into a briefing on the CAA, which came under fire on Tuesday in a coroner's report about New Zealand's seventh worst air crash.

Ms King said that she had "a number of searching questions" for the CAA board, and had requested that chairman Ron Tannock and deputy chair Hazel Armstrong attend a meeting with her next week.

Asked if she felt leadership changes were necessary, Ms King said she wanted to hold the meeting before considering that.

"I've got a number of questions I want to ask them before I form any views.

"I want the opportunity to talk with them."

The report by Christchurch coroner Richard McElrea found that a light plane crash in 2003 which killed eight people could have been prevented.

Pilot Michael Bannerman, 52, was flying the plane carrying nine Crop & Food Research Institute employees home from a Palmerston North conference when it went down in farmland, 2km short of the runway.

The coroner noted there had been complaints about Mr Bannerman's flying before the fatal flight was made, and suggested some of the CAA's duties should be split.

The CAA's woes follow on the heels of a critical audit by the Auditor-General last year, in which it was noted that the authority was taking too long to act on serious safety issues.

CAA director John Jones last night strongly defended his record and said he had no intention of resigning his position.

Mr Jones, who received a formal warning in 2003 after an inquiry into a conflict of interest involving an inspector at CAA, said he was achieving good results. "In the last three years in general aviation, we've made just over a 30 per cent decrease in the accident rate," he said.

"That's a fairly major turnaround."

New safety targets for the commercial aviation sector which were set to be achieved by 2010 have already largely been met, he said.

Mr Jones said the formal warning he received was in the past and had been dealt with, and he would battle for his job if he needed to.

"If safety's our game, we're achieving it," he said.

"When you look at what's happening, things are going right. If you lose your job because you're doing the right things, that's a problem."

The Ministry of Transport will monitor progress of the implementation of recommendations made by the Christchurch coroner.

Ms King said the secretary of transport had been assured by each of CAA's board members that safety "is not being compromised".

The coroner's recommendation that the CAA's law-enforcement role should be separated from its safety enforcement management role would be "seriously" considered, Ms King said. She has asked that the Ministry of Transport report to her monthly on progress with the coroner's recommendations, and those reports will be made public.

Jeffrey McCall, a lawyer speaking on behalf of some of the families of the victims of the Christchurch crash, said Ms King's words sounded positive but the proof of changes would "be in the pudding".

The families he represented had on Tuesday expressed doubt the CAA would follow through with changes.

"The evidence will be when they [CAA] are faced with this again, and how they act," he said.

"Once this becomes tomorrow's news and the spotlight is no longer on CAA, what will they do in the cold light of day ... when nobody is watching?"