The Air Navigation Order 2009

Mandatory reporting of occurrences

226.—(1) The objective of this article is to contribute to the improvement of air safety by ensuring that relevant information on safety is reported, collected, stored, protected and disseminated.

(2) The sole objective of occurrence reporting is the prevention of accidents and incidents and not to attribute blame or liability.

(3) This article applies to occurrences which endanger or which, if not corrected, would endanger an aircraft, its occupants or any other person.

(4) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (3), a list of examples of these occurrences is set out in Annexes I and II (and their Appendices) of the Occurrence Reporting Directive.

(5) Every person listed below must report to the CAA any event which constitutes an occurrence for the purposes of paragraph (3) and which comes to that person’s attention in the exercise of that person’s functions—

(a) the operator and the commander of a turbine-powered aircraft which has a certificate of airworthiness issued by the CAA;

(b) the operator and the commander of an aircraft operated under a national air operator’s certificate or an EU-OPS air operator certificate granted by the CAA;

(c) a person who carries on the business of manufacturing a turbine-powered aircraft, a commercial air transport aeroplane or a public transport aircraft, or any equipment or part of such an aircraft, in the United Kingdom;

(d) a person who carries on the business of maintaining or modifying a turbine-powered aircraft, which has a certificate of airworthiness issued by the CAA, and a person who carries on the business of maintaining or modifying any equipment or part of such an aircraft;

(e) a person who carries on the business of maintaining or modifying an aircraft, operated under a national air operator’s certificate or an EU-OPS air operator certificate granted by the CAA, and a person who carries on the business of maintaining or modifying any equipment or part of such an aircraft;

(f) a person who signs an airworthiness review certificate, or a certificate of release to service for a turbine-powered aircraft, which has a certificate of airworthiness issued by the CAA, and a person who signs an airworthiness review certificate or a certificate of release to service for any equipment or part of such an aircraft;

(g) a person who signs an airworthiness review certificate or a certificate of release to service for an aircraft operated under a national air operator’s certificate or an EU-OPS air operator certificate granted by the CAA, and a person who signs an airworthiness review certificate or a certificate of release to service for any equipment or part of such an aircraft;

(h) a person who performs a function which requires him to be authorised by the CAA as an air traffic controller or as a flight information service officer;

(i) a licensee and a manager of a licensed aerodrome or a manager of an airport to which Chapter III of Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24th September 2008 on common rules for the operation of air services in the Community applies;

(j) a person who performs a function concerning the installation, modification, maintenance, repair, overhaul, flight-checking or inspection of air navigation facilities which are utilized by a person who provides an air traffic control service under an approval issued by the CAA;

(k) a person who performs a function concerning the ground-handling of aircraft, including fuelling, servicing, loadsheet preparation, loading, de-icing and towing at an airport to which Chapter III of Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24th September 2008 on common rules for the operation of air services in the Community applies.

(6) Reports of occurrences must be made within such time, by such means and containing such information as may be prescribed and must be presented in such form as the CAA may in any particular case approve.

(7) A person listed in paragraph (5) must make a report to the CAA within such time, by such means, and containing such information as the CAA may specify in a notice in writing served on the person, being information which is in that person’s possession or control and which relates to an occurrence which has been reported by that person or another person to the CAA in accordance with this article.

(8) A person must not make any report under this article if the person knows or has reason to believe that the report is false in any particular.

(9) The CAA must put in place a mechanism to collect, evaluate, process and store occurrences reported in accordance with paragraphs (5) to (7).

(10) The CAA must store in its databases the reports which it has collected of occurrences, accidents and serious incidents.

(11) The CAA must make all relevant safety-related information stored in the databases mentioned in paragraph (10) available to the competent authorities of the other Member States and the Commission.

(12) The CAA must ensure that the databases referred to in paragraph (10) are compatible with the software developed by the European Commission for the purpose of implementing the Occurrence Reporting Directive.

(13) The CAA, having received an occurrence report, must enter it into its databases and notify, whenever necessary: the competent authority of the Member State where the occurrence took place; where the aircraft is registered; where the aircraft was manufactured, and where the operator’s air operator’s certificate was granted.

(14) The CAA must provide any entity entrusted with regulating civil aviation safety or with investigating civil aviation accidents and incidents within the Community with access to information on occurrences collected and exchanged in accordance with paragraphs (9) to (13) to enable it to draw the safety lessons from the reported occurrences.

(15) The CAA and the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents must use any information received in accordance with the terms of this article solely for the purposes set out in this article.

(16) The names or addresses of individual persons must not be recorded on the databases referred to in paragraph (10).

(17) Without prejudice to the rules of criminal law, no proceedings may be instituted in respect of unpremeditated or inadvertent infringements of the law which come to the attention of the relevant authorities only because they have been reported under this article as required by Article 4 of the Occurrence Reporting Directive, except in cases of gross negligence.

(18) The provisions in paragraphs (15) to (17) apply without prejudice to the right of access to information by judicial authorities.

(19) The CAA must put in place a system of voluntary reporting to collect and analyse information on observed deficiencies in aviation which are not required to be reported under the system of mandatory reporting, but which are perceived by the reporter as an actual or potential hazard.

(20) Voluntary reports presented to the CAA under paragraph (19) must be subjected to a process of disidentification by it where the person making the report requests that his or her identity is not recorded on the databases.

(21) The CAA must ensure that relevant safety information deriving from the analysis of reports, which have been subjected to disidentification, are stored and made available to all parties so that they can be used for improving safety in aviation.