We all know that jet departure paths over Sydney do steep banking through as much as 115 degrees at just 500 feet (ie immediately after take-off). The few other places in the world where this happens, there are mountains to be avoided... but in Sydney, the only thing in front of the planes (which they bank steeply to avoid) are blue-ribbon Liberal electorates. Now of course one might think only a conspiracy theorist could come up with such an implausible scenario, given nothing in the media has even hinted at such electoral bias... until you look closely at the evidence which has never been properly covered by an overly-compliant media - the sitting Liberal member for the seat avoided by the 115 degree turn claimed in a local paper article (Wentworth Courier March 1998) and also publicly stated (Double Bay aircraft noise rally) that he sought and achieved a moving of the flightpath that would have gone across the middle of his Liberal electorate... and to top that we have the PM's own fax to Paul Zammit (discovered by DoT in the Randwick/Wentworth Federal Court case) offering to have further electoral bias - moving more noise off Liberal electorates to cited Labor ones, if Zammit kept Lowe in Liberal hands... So in this country, you don't need to be an investigative reporter to find the corruption that is far far worse than that for which John Howard ran Ros Kelly from parliament - the relevant politicians have each admitted the clear bias that Ros Kelly denied!
But until now, at least you thought the organs of the state which looked after safety would not have been compromised by such issues as moving the noise from the PM's electorate and other Liberal electorates! For CASA, BASI and Airservices Australia have independent boards of eminent citizens... but they too have been dragged into acting corruptly by their actions and, more precisely, their lack of action.
The attached diagram (in Adobe PDF format) shows a jet which approached the third runway from the South (Runway 34R) in the middle of Mode 9 (the corruptly-designed northerly parallel flow) and aborted its landing on 21/3/99 (not 1998 as incorrectly typed on the diagram). The aborted landing 'go around' took what would normally be a safe avoidance path at any other airport in Australia - it flew off at 90 degrees to the runway and away from the other parallel runway... but with the corrupt design of Mode 9, this put it directly into the path of jets departing (which to avoid a Liberal electorate also turn 115 degrees away from runway heading). Now, when you consider that a MAJOR CAUSE of aborted landings is the fact that the plane taking off (before the arrival) has not cleared the runway, just imagine what would have happened in this situation, a slow jet taking off turns right onto radial 75, while the faster one aborting the landing overflies the runway and turns right also onto radial 75 (as shown on the diagram) and the plane climbing has no visibility above and behind it as it climbs into the path of the plane aborting its landing! A true recipe for disaster, and all artificially created by virtue of the 'no fly zone' ahead over the Liberal seat of Wentworth! Some form of Fair Sharing!
Then today, the second type of lack of safety for Mode 9 was shown very clearly. During the afternoon (9 August 1999), with winds of 15-20 knots from 280 degrees, gusting to 22 knots, planes kept on making the 115 degree unnecessary right turn of Mode 9. But now they were taking off with 22 knots of cross-wind, which as soon as they banked at the minimum possible height allowed internationally, turned into 22 knots of downwind, so you had planes attempting to climb with a strong downwind (remember they usually try to take off into the wind). This meant that most margin for error had been removed. This also put the 34R planes over Coogee rather than North Maroubra, as there was no way they could bank steeply enough to do the full U-turn onto the 75 radial, with the wind pushing them out into a much bigger arc. Add to this the fact that the pilot has the final say in which runway he will use, so just at the beginning of the evening peak, a pilot indicated that he wanted to land INTO the wind (ie coming in over Coogee onto the East-West runway)... so in the middle of Mode 9, when jets were being sent out with a strong tailwind to Coogee, a jet comes in 'head on' to the main flow of Mode 9 at 4:30pm and lands into the wind on the East-West runway. This shows just what added and entirely unnecessary risk is introduced by having the outgoing path of a north-facing runway going along the approach path of the cross-runway - when the cross-runway is used, this must produce a situation of a head-on! It was one thing to put the 34R takeoffs over the East-West arrival/departure paths when the East-West runway was closed (1996), but now that the Howard government is pushing so heavily for the use of the East-West all weekends, mornings and evenings whenever possible, it is simply UNSAFE to have the flightpaths so duplicated. The concepts of reciprocity and respite - the core of the Long Term Operating Plan - have only been implemented over Liberal areas, and duplication/overlapping of flightpaths over Labor areas is an intentional part of the design by the current corrupt regime in place.
So when the inevitable crash does happen, it will be good to have a NSW Coroner answerable to only a Labor NSW government look into who caused it... and who should be charged with manslaughter 'cause the paper trail leads to John Howard, Arthur Sinodinos (his chief of staff), Mark Vaile, John Anderson, Andrew Thomson (ministers), Chris Falvey (the Drummoyne-based DoT designer of the LTOP), Bill Pollard, John Forsyth, Peter Evans, Ros Dubs, Don Brown, Ken McLean (all Airservices), Joe Hockey, Brendan Nelson (SACF) and all of the board members of Airservices, CASA and BASI. Some have been out-and-out corrupt, while others have simply failed in their statutory responsibility to protect the flying public and the one million citizens of Sydney who are overflown, despite having been made aware of the corruption to which they have been asked to turn a blind eye! But all will be seen as responsible in any Coronial investigation... and the vigilant resident groups have all the necessary files to show the Coroner as to the prior notices having been given to all the responsible authorities, so that none of the above will be able to claim a lack of prior knowledge....
Just so you don't think I am in some way alone on the issue, this very issue of the corrupt intentional concentration of flightpaths within the eastern suburbs was cited by the peak resident body SACF Inc in its overall position paper provided in both electronic format and in printed format to all relevant media, politicians and regulatory bodies, including maps showing the correlation of jet flightpaths and federal electoral boundaries.
For any further information, feel free to contact me on (0500)UGETME. Graeme Harrison
last update 24 Oct 1999
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