2.46 The Committee received evidence that, apart from the incident involving Captain Kolver, four other Australian BAe 146 pilots have been affected by fumes in the course of a flight.46 The November 1999 incident involving he flight between Bromma and Malmo is currently under investigation by the Swedish Board of Accident Investigation.
2.47 Despite the views of CASA, British Aerospace asserted:
The BAe 146 is no different in design or to frequency of oil leaks than any other aircraft. … There was an oil leak problem in the BAe 146 in 1991-92 and that reputation persists today despite the fact that modifications have been in produced to engines and auxiliary power units which have reduced the frequency of oil leaks to an industry standard level.47
2.48 Mr Black, Senior Vice President, Engineering Customer Support and Quality at British Aerospace (UK) in his evidence referred to Professor Balouet’s submission when he stated:
The Balouet report, … identifies 500 fume events worldwide. If that 500 worldwide relates to the 93 that are recognised in Australia that does not seem unreasonable. In there, Balouet says that Alaskan Airlines have registered 1,000 complaints, that Canadian Airlines have registered 600 complaints and that, to his knowledge, there are 30 legal cases worldwide pending on this subject. But on the 146, to my knowledge, there are no cases pending and no cases ongoing. … Again, if I refer to the BASI statistics, only 12 out of their 93 were 146 related. 48
2.49 In his evidence Mr Black appeared to agree that some crew members had been affected by flying on the BAe 146 but in the view of Mr Black those effects did not pose a threat to air safety:
With the weight of human evidence and suffering, which is quite clear, there must be something there. We are comfortable on the one hand that there is no flight safety risk. We are comfortable that our aircraft meet all of the rules. But, when you look at the weight of evidence, it is impossible to conclude that there is an issue….
45 CASA, Evidence, 13 March 2000, p 181
46 See Submission 16, Mrs Robin May; Ansett Australia, Evidence, 1 May 2000.
47 British Aerospace, Evidence, 2 November 1999, p 77. For a contrary view see Submission 24A, FAAA,
p 1.
48 British Aerospace, Evidence, 2 November 1999, p 81
But all of the evidence we have to date suggests that our aircraft does not leak any more than any other aircraft and does not produce harmful chemicals in the cabin. We know there is a health issue and we will continue to work with ASHRAE and with ASTM in order to determine what that is.49
2.50 Such assertions appear to ignore statistical evidence on the BAe 146 issue given to this Committee. As noted in Chapter 1, the operators acknowledge hundreds of reports of fume contamination on the BAe in Australia in recent years which continue to be identified by compulsory reporting systems.50 The Committee received evidence that Ansett has, in addition to the above occasions, recorded reported fume occurrences of 1 per 131 flights. This appears to average one incident of fume contamination on an Ansett flight per week.
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