Air transport safety, civil aviation: prevention of accidents, collect and dissemination of information

PURPOSE : to contribute to air safety by ensuring that relevant information on safety is reported, collected, stored and disseminated. COMMUNITY MEASURE : Directive 2003/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on occurrence reporting in civil aviation. CONTENT : the rate of accidents in civil aviation has remained fairly constant in the last decade; nevertheless there is concern that the forecasted traffic increase could lead to an increase in the number of accidents in the near future. Experience has shown that often before an accident occurs, a number of incidents and numerous other deficiencies have shown the existence of safety hazards. The improvement of the safety of civil aviation requires a better knowledge of these occurrences. The main points of this Directive are as follows: - when an occurrence involves aircraft registered in a Member State or operated by an undertaking established in a Member State, this occurrence must be reported even when it happened outside the Community; - each Member State should set up mandatory reporting systems. A list of examples of occurrences is given in the Annexes, but these are not comprehensive; - various categories of personnel working in civil aviation observe occurrences of interest for the prevention of accidents. These personnel are under an obligation to report occurrences; - the Commission must develop specific software for the storage of information; - there are provisions for the exchange of information between Member States; - safety information will be available to entities entrusted with regulating civil aviation safety or investigating accidents and incidents within the Community and, as appropriate, to the people who may learn from them and take or initiate the necessary action to improve safety; - the sensitive nature of safety information is such that the way to ensure its collection is by guaranteeing its confidentiality, the protection of its source and the confidence of the personnel working in civil aviation. Member States must take measures to ensure appropriate confidentiality of information; - appropriate measures should be put in place to enable the setting up of confidential reporting schemes; - there are provisions for Member States to put in place a system of voluntary reporting on matters that do not come under the system of mandatory reporting; there are also provisions stating that such voluntary reports must be "disidentified". DATE OF TRANSPOSITION : 04/07/05 ENTRY INTO FORCE : 04/07/03.�