The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has asked CASA to issue Airservices Australia with a Show Cause Notice (SCN) over the issue of defective En Route Supplements Australia (ERSA).
AOPA CEO Ben Morgan sent a letter to CASA Acting Director of Aviation Safety Shane Carmody yesterday requesting Airservices be treated exactly the same as a general aviation operator would after some ERSAs were found to be missing several pages from the aerodromes section.
Electronic versions of ERSA such as those in AvPlan and OzRunways, and on the Airservices website were not affected.
Morgan called for a formal investigation into the matter, highlighting Airservices position as "an essential provider of data and information that is relied on by aviation organisations and pilots in Australia to maintain safe air navigation."
"The provision of defective ERSA publications to aviation organisations and pilots has exposed users to significant risk which includes the potential for loss of life," Morgan stated in the letter to Carmody.
"Airservices failed to identify the defect in time to stop the publications public release, demonstrating a lack of oversight and risk management by the organisation.
"Understanding that safety is the most important concern of CASA and that its core function is to ensure that lives are not unnecessarily put at risk, will CASA now suspend Airservices operations in Australia and require the organisation to "show-cause" before it may continue to operate?
"Or will Airservices be given special treatment and full exemption from the normal Friday 5pm 'suspension and show-cause' process which has been consistently used against the general aviation industry by the regulator?"
The timing of the issue has not been good for Airservices, which recently cut staff levels by up to 900 heads, prompting fears from within the industry that the service provider may not be able to keep up service standards.
Airservices Australia issued a statement last night saying the problem was likely a printer issue and had no relationship to staff numbers
"The En Route Supplement Australia (ERSA) is available online via our website to ensure pilots have instant access to the most up to date information," the statement said. "This is supported by a printed version with around 16,000 ERSA books annually.
"We are aware of four ERSA books within the last 12 months that have some print pages missing. This appears to be an isolated external printing issue.
"There has been no change in staffing at Airservices in relation to the editorial functions responsible for production of the ERSA."
Aviation supply shops have told Australian Flying that most batches of ERSA produced contain some books with missing pages.