An aviation lawyer says new warning systems for planes that became compulsory earlier this month would have prevented a Queensland plane disaster in May.

The ABC’s Four Corners program has examined the Lockhart River crash which killed 15 people.

The program raises concerns over the low pay rate for many regional pilots as well the financial pressures placed on small operators.

Aviation lawyer and pilot Peter Carter says a new ground warning system that became compulsory on July 1 should have been brought in earlier.

I’ve no doubt that with that type of system installed in the aircraft the pilots would have been able to avert the collision,” he said.

But one of the directors of Trans Air, the company that owned the crashed plane, is unwilling to say whether the new technology would have made a difference.

“I don’t know enough about the new equipment to know whether it would have made any difference or not,” Trans Air director Les Wright said.

CASA

Meanwhile the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) says regional airlines have a responsibility to ensure safety is not compromised by the financial difficulties involved in operating in the bush.

CASA’s chief operating officer Bruce Gemmell told Four Corners that the profit margins of regional airlines are very tight, but CASA does its best to make sure corners are not cut.

“It’s also the responsibility of the operating airlines and very much in their interests to make sure they don’t get this wrong,” he said.

The old adage if you think safety is expensive, try having an accident.

However a regional aviation spokesman says things will only improve if country airports are seen as an important part of the national infrastructure instead of a way of making money.

Brian Candler from the Regional Aviation Association says there is a community service obligation on governments to provide regional airports with better technology.

“If you have less sophisticated equipment, the occasions on which it is less safe to attempt to land increase and that’s what we have in the bush now, and often there is a pressure to fly a service that it may have been better not to have flown,” he said.

An investigation into the cause of the Lockhart River accident is expected to be completed next year.