The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is inviting industry comment on its proposed amendments to the mandatory aviation accident and incident reporting scheme.
The ATSB is seeking to change the current reporting scheme, which is contained in the Transport Safety Investigation Regulations 2003 (TSI Regulations), after highlighting elements of the scheme that can be improved in the interests of enhancing its operational value within the safety system.
Reports are used by the ATSB to determine which occurrences require a full investigation in order to learn from the accident or incident. In addition, and just as importantly, the reports are used for research and analysis. The data provided is essential for identifying trends and other safety issues that need to be acted on by the industry, regulators and policy makers.
Reporting of incidents to the ATSB has grown significantly in the seven years since the mandatory reporting scheme came into effect on July 1 2003. The ATSB received around 8500 notifications (4556 of which were classified as safety occurrences) in 2003-04, compared to 15,100 (8393 of which were classified as safety occurrences) in 2009-10. Importantly though, the increase in reported occurrences doesn’t represent a decrease in safety, as the occurrence of accidents (deaths, serious injury, serious damage) has decreased over the same period.
The ATSB’s primary focus is on revising the detailed list of reportable matters in order to provide clarity to those parties with reporting responsibilities. By doing so the ATSB hopes to in future be able to source more targeted data to use in safety research and analysis, which it says will also assist in deciding which matters warrant investigation and which don’t.
“While the current Regulations have served well to establish the high level of reporting currently enjoyed in Australia, experience gained since their introduction provides the opportunity
to enhance the reporting framework further,” the ATSB says. “In
particular, one of the main drivers behind the proposed amendments is to
provide clarification to parts of the regime where persons with
reporting responsibilities have been unsure about their obligations with
respect to particular occurrences.”
Industry comment is being sought by the bureau regarding defined aviation terms; the actual matters that are required to be reported and their categorisation; and the differentiation between the reporting responsibilities for the sport and recreation sector and the rest of the industry.
Further details of the proposed amendments can be viewed by clicking here. The ATSB will accept comment on these matters up until Friday December 17. Feedback should be forwarded to ATSB Contact Officer Steve Young by emailing regulation.consultation@atsb.gov.au.