A RELATIVE of the Angel Flight Mount Gambier victims says is it “unforgivable” his much loved family members died in a crash that was “completely avoidable”.
In a scathing broadside at the aviation community service operator, Robert Redding said the final report into the accident “speaks for itself”.
“Angel Flight absolutely deserves to be crucified in the national media,” Mr Redding exclusively told The Border Watch yesterday.
“It’s too late for our family. Nothing is ever going to bring Tracy and Emily back.
“But at least this report reveals Angel Flight as the highly questionable organisation that it is and by that token hopefully the measures forced on them will prevent another tragedy like ours ever happening again.”
Mr Redding said Angel Flight had “avoided us like the plague” since the accident more than two years ago.
“One single, solitary phone call about a week after is the only effort of contact they have ever attempted and even that was nothing more than lip service,” he revealed.
“Not a single word since. Absolutely pathetic.”
Mr Redding said Angel Flight had “simply washed their hands” of the family and left it to sort out the mess.
“Not their problem, not their responsibility. So much for the glorious organisation they portray themselves as being, out there helping needy patients,” he said.
Following the release of the report, Mr Redding said he hoped the measures introduced by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) would prevent similar incidents.
“While the benefits a system such as Angel Flight provides to regional and remote communities have to be acknowledged, this must never be conducted at the expense of public safety,” Mr Redding said.
“The way the Angel Flight administration runs the service is highly questionable at best.
“Angel Flight has continually insisted the weather caused the accident. No, it was the pilot who caused the accident,” Mr Redding said.
“Grant Gilbert chose to take off in those atrocious conditions, without the appropriate accreditation to do so.
“It makes absolutely no difference at all that this was a goodwill flight on his part. He made a totally reckless decision for reasons we will never know and it resulted in our tragedy.
“This is the sort of pilot that Angel Flight defends having fly for them. How many other risk-takers do they have on their books?”
Mr Redding said the statistics revealed in this report made a “complete mockery” of Angel Flight’s previous claims of supposedly having had only two accidents in more than 46,000 flights.
“Why has the ATSB had to resort to cross-matching incident reports on their database with Angel Flight’s records for these results to see the light of day?” he questioned.
“Has Angel Flight seriously had no clue at all these incidents were happening? I find it pretty hard to comprehend that word never got back to them in some form or another.
“Regardless, it’s disgraceful they did not have some kind of formal reporting procedure in place until recently.”
While Angel Flight said it disclosed the risk of flying to passengers who signed up to use the service, he questioned whether they were told the “highly elevated” risk levels in comparison with commercial flights.
“Angel Flight insists that public safety is CASA’s responsibility, not theirs, yet at the same time Angel Flight is pig-headedly fighting against CASA’s tightening of regulations for community service based flights. Why?
“Does Angel Flight actually care about safety or not? Or are they too busy looking after their own self interests ahead of everything else, public safety be damned?”
The report states the cost of seats on commercial flights is equivalent to the subsidies given to the Angel Flight pilots.
“These commercial flights are quite often available from the same location as the aerodromes utilised, or within 50km. Why are these far safer options usually ignored?” Mr Redding queried.
“Why aren’t passengers offered the much safer option of commercially regulated flights? Why are they instead herded onto private aircraft? Why are passengers being put into situations that have far higher elements of risk in comparison?
“This smells like a scheme designed to help pilots maintain flight hours as its primary focus, with Angel Flight acting as a broker who refuses to accept any hint of responsibility.
