CAA questions Taupo Airport safety

By LAURILEE McMICHAEL in Taupo
Taupo Airport does not meet present target safety levels, according to a draft Civil Aviation Authority air safety review.

However, that conclusion is disputed by an independent risk management consultants' study commissioned by airport users in response to the review.

The draft review, dated April but only just publicly released, is recommending that a manned aerodrome flight information service should be reinstated at Taupo Airport and a number of other steps taken to provide acceptable safety at the airport.

The review says providing the system, known as AFIS, would provide "a significant improvement in safety levels" for both potential aeroplane "conflicts" (where aircraft may come close to a crash) and aircraft and parachutist conflicts.

The Civil Aviation Authority's trigger figure to establish an AFIS system is 40,000 aircraft movements a year.

Last year the number of movements at Taupo Airport was around 43,000.

The Airways Corporation of New Zealand originally provided an AFIS system and staff at Taupo Airport, but withdrew the service in 1996.

At present the airport operates a partially automated information service known as Unicom.

But Taupo's airport operators were so dismayed with Civil Aviation's draft review that they approached Sydney-based risk consultants for an independent assessment.

The report from Marsh Risk Consulting says the CAA review was "inherently flawed".

"Consequently in our view it was unable to accurately detect and assess the risks to aviation safety of operations at Taupo aerodrome ... we do not agree that the study has demonstrated that it is necessary to re-establish an aerodrome flight information service [AFIS] at Taupo ... it is even possible that the reverse would be true, ie Taupo would be less safe with AFIS," the Marsh report states.

The CAA review had "technical and conceptual errors" but its fatal weakness was the lack of proper consultation with all stakeholders, it says.

Arthur Whitehead of the Taupo Airport Users Group said the airport operators, the CAA and the Taupo District Council, which operates the airport, all wanted a safe and efficient airport operation.

But it was by no means clear that AFIS would deliver that and could even seriously undermine a number of the other major safety initiatives already in place at Taupo.

Taupo District Council finance manager Doug Gartner said the final version of the review was due shortly.

If it recommended implementing AFIS, that would be up to the airport's board to consider.