Occurrence
reporting in civil aviation
- Above
820 million passengers were carried by air in 2011 in the European
Union1.
- Air
transport is one of the safest forms of travel. However, while the
accident rate has remained more or less stable since 2004, the
traffic is expected to almost double by 20302.
This could involve an increased number of accidents and related
fatalities
- The
EU is therefore faced with a significant challenge if it wants to
continue protect its citizens and to be the world leader in aviation
safety as expressed in the Transport White Paper3.
The current aviation safety system is primarily a reactive system relying on technological progress, the adoption of legislation overseen by effective regulatory authorities, and detailed accident investigations leading to recommendations for safety improvements. However, whilst the ability to learn lessons from an accident is crucial, systems which are essentially reactive are showing their limits in being able to drive further improvements in the accident rate.
In the Communication on "Setting up a Safety Management System for Europe"4 the Commission underlined the necessity to move from the mainly reactive current system towards a more proactive system that attempts to foresee and prevent accidents based primarily on the collection and analysis of data. The proposed Regulation on occurrence reporting in civil aviation is the core element of such a transition as the effectiveness of a proactive system greatly depends on the ability to systematically analyse all available safety information, including information on civil aviation "occurrences". An occurrence is any type of event significant in the context of aviation safety such as, for example, a near collision between two aircrafts.
2. What is the problem?
The European Union and its Member States are not currently set up to use the widest possible range of data to prevent accidents and to address the risks to aviation safety in a systematic manner. This is caused by a number of elements.
-
Firstly,
whilst data is vital to identify safety hazards, there is not
sufficient awareness of all safety occurrences. This situation is
partly due to the fact that individuals are sometimes afraid to
report mistakes they may have made or contributed to (the "Just
Culture" issue). The insufficient clarity in occurrence
reporting obligations and in the flow of information also
contributes to the insufficient collection of occurrences.
-
Secondly,
occurrence data integration is not harmonised among Member States
and it is relatively unstructured, causing sometimes poor quality of
information and incomplete data. This situation affects the
consistency and the usefulness of information and limits its use for
safety purposes.
-
Thirdly,
the current EU legislation does not indicate how Member States
should use the occurrences collected for contributing to the
improvement of safety.
3. The Commission's proposal
In order to better protect European citizens, the Commission is proposing an ambitious and comprehensive set of rules to move from a principally reactive towards a more proactive and evidence based aviation safety system.
To meet this challenge, the Commission proposes in particular the following elements:
-
Establishing
the appropriate environment to ensure that all occurrences which
endanger or could endanger aviation safety are reported and
collected.
-
Clarifying
the flow of information
-
Improving
the quality and completeness of data
-
Better
exchange of information
-
Better
protection against inappropriate use of safety information
-
Better
protection of reporter to ensure the continued availability of
information
-
Introduce
requirements on information analysis and adoption of follow up
actions at national level
-
Stronger
analysis at EU level
-
Improved
transparency towards the general public
4. What are the benefits expected by this proposal?
The Commission expects that this proposal will contribute to avoid aircraft accidents to occur and therefore better protect air passengers in the European Union and beyond.
In addition, the Commission expects this proposal to bring economic benefits to the whole aviation community. Indeed aircraft accidents are very costly at many different levels and the Commission believes that the investment in safety management systems to prevent accidents will be offset by the reduced cost flowing from fewer accidents.
5. What are the next steps?
The proposal must be approved by both the European Parliament and the Council (Member States) before becoming European legislation. Once approved, the Regulation will become directly applicable in all Member States as national law.
More information: IP/12/1406
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/safety/index_en.htm
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52011DC0670:EN:NOT
1 :
Source: Eurostat
2 :
EUROCONTROL CND/STATFOR Doc 415 of 17 December 2010 - Long-Term Forecast - Flight Movements 2010 - 2030
3 :
White Paper 2011 "Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system", COM/2011/0144 final.
4 :
COM/2011/0670 final.