SA: Smith says CASA wouldn t have shut down Ansett

AAP General News (Australia)
04-24-2001
SA: Smith says CASA wouldn t have shut down Ansett

ADELAIDE, April 24 AAP - A threat from Australia's aviation watchdog to shut down Ansett
was a sham, former CASA chairman Dick Smith said today.

The aviation expert said the Civil Aviation Safety Authority's (CASA) threat was never
to be acted on.

Mr Smith also said Transport Minister John Anderson "hasn't got a clue" about aviation.

"CASA is an organisation, basically it's run by a group of workers' collectives, there's
no real leadership," Mr Smith told Adelaide radio 5AA today.

"Once they detected that they had a very weak minister, and by the way John Anderson
is a nice bloke, but he just hasn't got a clue about aviation, once they detected that,
they basically run rampant.

"These problems that they've got now, they'll get worse."

CASA last Thursday grounded Ansett's fleet of 10 Boeing 767s due to safety concerns
and threatened to issue a notice asking the airline to show why it should not be shut
down.

The show cause notice was not issued.

Two of Ansett's 767s have since been cleared by CASA and have resumed flights, but
it was expected to be a month before the entire fleet returned to service.

AAP sl/jas/sb

KEYWORD: ANSETT SMITH

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