BPA-CAA: A LETHAL MIX

BPA-CAA: A LETHAL MIX

Since the Civil Aviation Authority delegated regulatory oversight to British Parachute Association Ltd –– rebranded and trading as British Skydiving in December 2019 –– in 1996, there have been forty-four known skydiving-related deaths and innumerable life-changing injuries. Do the quangocrats of the CAA care about their proxy regulator's shocking safety record? It seems not.

Before BPA Watch began asking questions about delegation of regulatory oversight by the CAA to BPA Ltd, BPA Ltd's website boldly advertised its status as a regulator acting for the CAA. By what authority did the CAA, a quango rather than a governmental department, delegate these powers to the BPA? And did the CAA even possess these powers to begin with? 

BPA Ltd took their website offline on November 10th 2020 "for essential maintenance". When the website was switched back on, the wording had been revised to: "We regulate our sport under an Exposition with the Civil Aviation Authority.". Sources within BPA Ltd indicate that CAA Head Office demanded the revision in the face of growing public awareness of the CAA's inability to control its proxy regulator.

Judging by some of the documents BPA Watch has seen, the CAA quangocrats don't like it when anyone suggests that the CAA not only condones but actively aids and abets BPA Ltd's strategy of establishing a lucrative monopoly over sports parachuting in the United Kingdom. The denials come from the top down.

CAA Chair Air Marshall Sir Stephen Hillier DFC: in denial?

In fairness to the current CAA directorship and its new Chair, Air Marshall (Ret'd) Sir Stephen Hillier DFC, they inherited the CAA-BPA relationship although they are aware of the growing discontent amongst BPA members about the firm's dubious practices because they read BPA Watch's blog.

However, far from seeking to address any impropriety, the CAA doggedly defends its relationship with BPA Ltd. Furthermore, the CAA has blatantly codified the BPA monopoly in the March 2020 edition of its Civil Aviation Publication (CAP) 660. 

CAP 660, which underwent a public consultation phase during which the CAA ignored suggestions and objections, obliges Parachute Training Organisations, pilots and instructors to work through BPA Ltd. CAP 660 also underlines BPA Ltd's well-known aversion to Health and Safety legislation and might even be illegal.

As BPA Watch has revealed, twenty-one of the twenty-nine BPA-affiliated PTOs are in open revolt against the BPA over the autocratic behaviour of the firm's ghost directors, who hide behind a managing council of official directors without any effective executive power. 

Since its incorporation in 1966, BPA Ltd has had 123 directors, equating to an attrition rate of two resignations or firings per year. 

The majority of departures over the past few years have involved directors who challenged the cabal of ghost directors who run BPA Ltd like a private fiefdom. The firm's Chief Operations Officer Tony Butler heads this cabal but has never been a director of BPA Ltd. 

The governing legislation –– Air Navigation Order 2016 Article 90 –– stipulates that: "The CAA must grant a parachuting permission if it is satisfied that the applicant is a fit person to hold the permission and is competent to conduct parachuting safely, having regard in particular to the applicant’s (a) previous conduct and experience; and (b) equipment, organisation, staffing and other arrangements.".  

Before granting such permission, the CAA must of course be satisfied that the club or team is operating according an Operations Manual that is acceptable to the CAA. This all seems perfectly reasonable in theory but, in practice, the only Operations Manual deemed acceptable by the CAA –– for sports and military-style parachuting –– is the BPA Operations Manual. 

The CAA further facilitates the BPA monopoly by referring all applications to BPA Ltd. If BPA Ltd does not approve an application, it is either declined by the CAA or subjected to a seemingly endless administrative process. Another of the CAA-BPA ploys to maintain the BPA monopoly involves CAA insistence upon upfront payment of exorbitant fees for this administrative process––which the CAA never itemises.  

The CAA has a responsibility to ensure that once they issue a ‘Permission to Parachute’, parachuting is carried out safely. The CAA does not have any in-house parachuting expertise and has therefore delegated this responsibility to the BPA as a CAA-Approved Organisation.

BPA COO Tony Butler: sociopathic megalomaniac?

 

In one rare case concerning a PTO operator who bypassed BPA Ltd and obtained Approved Person status from the CAA, the operator received a visit from two senior BPA figures –– named as Tony Butler and Tye Boughen –– who expressed their displeasure in blunt terms. 

Shortly afterwards, the CAA withdrew the PTO operator's AP status. Not long after this, according to the PTO operator, Tye Boughen telephoned him about a upcoming examination to earn the BPA-approved examiner rating and told him not to bother attending as he would not pass the exam.  

Until recently, as BPA Watch wrote, BPA Ltd's website claimed that CAA had delegated regulatory oversight to the BPA. There are also minutes of BPA Council meetings in which this claim appears. 

Under the heading Approval of Persons to Furnish Reports, CAP 660 states: "6.4 Under the terms of Article 268 of the ANO the CAA may approve a person as qualified to furnish reports to it and may accept such reports. This responsibility will normally be undertaken within the structure provided by a competent corporate body which has been recognised for that purpose by the CAA.

"Since 1996, British Parachute Association Limited (trading as British Skydiving from Dec 2019) has been the holder of an Exposition & CAA Schedule of Approval, which enables parachuting Permissions to be issued to British Skydiving Parachute Training Organisations and Display Teams, by the CAA, on the basis of recommendations made by British Skydiving.".

Senior CAA and BPA Ltd management declined to comment but the wording on BPA Ltd's website was recently changed and now states: "We regulate our sport under an Exposition with the Civil Aviation Authority.".

Other BPA documents also make similar statements; the BPA operates to an ‘Exposition and Civil Aviation Authority of Approval’. This is the instrument that defines the organisation and procedures acceptable to CAA and describes the responsibilities, control and inspection procedures by which the BPA assures compliance with the terms of CAA Approval.

Former paratrooper and Red Devils member Ian Marshall served as a BPA Ltd Director and Council member for twenty-seven years. Marshall says of the Exposition that "the BPA ghost directorate refuses to show it to directors and council members. What are they hiding?".  

A source close to the BPA Council suggested that this very recent revision was imposed upon the autocratic Mr Butler and his cronies by CAA directors worried about BPA Watch's revelations and the  growing refusal of BPA-affiliated Parachute Training Organisations to continue tolerating some have openly described as BPA extortion and fraud. 

Skydiving death toll on BPA watch: does the CAA care?

BPA Ltd does not seem to spend much time or money on the safety aspects of their regulatory activities, as the shocking toll of fatalities and life-changing injuries since 1996 indicates. In the financial year 2018-2019, BPA Ltd spent just over £2,100 on safety but reportedly paid its COO and other ghost directors six-figure salaries. 

Some say that BPA Ltd has abused its regulatory powers to drive competitors out of business and to establish its increasingly lucrative monopoly on parachuting with the assistance of the CAA. Some former BPA directors speak of direct relationship between BPA ghost supremo Tony Butler and long-serving CAA CEO Richard Moriarty, who has been described as enjoying BPA corporate hospitality, including tandem parachute descents.

CAA CEO Richard Moriarty.

 Another question that clearly causes unease in the CAA and BPA corridors of power concerns the regulatory powers apparently given by the CAA to the BPA.

As a barrister who who acted for an airfield and parachute drop zone owner remarked: "The CAA is just a quango. It would have needed ministerial authorisation to delegate this power to the BPA. 

"However, the more salient question hiding in plain sight doesn't concern a possible overstepping of its powers by the CAA but whether the CAA even had these powers to delegate in the first place. The Air Navigation Order 2016, for instance, suggests otherwise.".

The ANO 2016 as quoted above casts doubt on the CAA's jurisdiction over parachuting itself, stating unequivocally that parachuting falls under the Health and Safety Executive. Parachutists come under CAA regulations whilst abroad aircraft but once they exit and clear the aircraft, CAA authority ends 

Letter of the law: no CAA oversight over parachuting?

 

The pilot cannot permit parachutists to exit his aircraft unless he has a Parachuting Permission granted by the CAA. Critics of the tightly-knit relationship between the CAA and the BPA say that the CAA refuses such permissions if the BPA does not approve of them. In this way and others, the CAA facilitates the BPA monopoly on parachuting. 

BPA Ltd has been able to amass millions of pounds over the years despite its claimed not-for-profit amateur status because, say former BPA Ltd directors, the CAA has only charged the firm a fraction of the fees that ought to have been paid according to the CAA's own Scheme of Charges. Conservative estimates of the under-payments are in the region of £3 million.

Others say that the millions are related in part to the BPA's income from student skydiver or temporary membership fees. As BPA Watch revealed, BPA-affiliated PTOs have to pay BPA Ltd a fee for every provisional membership related to tandem skydiving. Tandem skydiving is a £20 million-plus per annum business. 

Based on published figures, BPA Watch had arrived at a figure of £1,124,600 per annum but the true income, say PTO rebels, is twice as much. Whatever the case, these figures are somewhat more than the £4,066 declared as income from temporary membership in BPA Ltd's most recently published Annual Statement.  

 

These temporary membership fees are in effect a fee imposed on the PTOs by the BPA in return for the BPA affiliation they need in order to have CAA permission to organise parachute courses and events. As BPA Watch revealed, the insurance BPS Ltd forces on members and temporary members seems to be worthless.

Some PTO operators and other critics of the BPA have described the insurance requirements as a scam amounting to extortion. Others say that the BPA substantially understates the income it receives from PTOs each year the levy imposed on PTO customers for temporary BPA membership. BPA claims that over half of this levy relates to insurance cover. 

For years, PTOs have tried to get the BPA to show them its insurance policies because the declared premiums are far higher than any estimates obtained from leading insurance brokers by PTO owners and operators. BPA Watch explored the question of BPA insurance in Protection Racket and Sidestepping the Law.

As the PTO Paper says: “BS has been in the position to set pricing without meeting too much resistance from stakeholders. This has resulted in a non-profit business where there is [sic] significant excess earnings. This may have led to poor focus on financial efficiency and less considered spending.”.

While CAA authorisations are, of course, essential for any form of flight in United Kingdom airspace, they could be provided at a fraction of the tariffs the CAA demands from applicants whilst apparently exonerating BPA Ltd from such tariffs.  

In any final analysis, the CAA could be said to be failing in its duty to British taxpayers to collect the appropriate fees from BPA Ltd. In this way, taxpayers could be said to be subsidising the cost of the shocking number of fatalities and life-changing injuries suffered by skydivers because of the failure of the regulator to regulate safety. 

BPA Ltd has been described as "allergic to Health and Safety legislation and regulations and the most recent edition of its CAP 660, published by the CAA in March 2020, seems decidedly light on Health and Safety compared to other Civil Aviation Publications. BPA Ltd has stated that CAP 660 "represents a Code of Practice that was, in the main, developed by the BPA itself.".  

The BPA is clearly attempting to establish a monopoly on parachuting in the UK and the CAA is clearly aiding and abetting the BPA in this goal. The CAA is arguably complicit in the forty-four known skydiving fatalities and the numerous life-changing injuries since 1996, when the quango delegated its alleged powers to BPA Ltd. 

The CAA denies the charge but condones its proxy's tenacious refusal to respect Health and Safety legisation and to invest more in safety. The denials come from the top down athough the CAA interface with the BPA is handled by a relatively junior manager. Before BPA Watch was set up, the CAA Chair and CEO could have claimed to have been badly briefed by their subordinates. This is no longer the case. 

Whatever the case of this sordid affair, BPA Ltd has a vested interest in protecting the profitability of its dubious regulatory power and the CAA has a vested interest in making sure that its involvement in facilitating an impressive range of criminal behaviour as revealed by BPA Watch, which is rapidly becoming general public knowledge.

BPA Watch –– 26.11.2020