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Potential challenges to SMS implementation Legal and Cultural Issues in Safety Reporting

Radu CIOPONEA Performance Review Unit, EUROCONTROL 5 - 7 April 2006, Baku, Azerbaijan

European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation

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Challenges

Legal Protection from judiciary Confidentiality assurance

Cultural No-blame culture; Openness in reporting; Acceptance of mistakes; Communication and trust.

You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag

of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of

experience before you empty the bag of luck.

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The legal challenge

Impediments/threats can exist in national legislation: Penal law; Labour law; Civil law.

Judiciary is NOT the enemy but a partner; Get a good lawyer and work together! Apart a few difficult cases, legislation is a poor justification

for do-nothing.

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Legislation / Regulation

International legislation and regulations must be implemented in full;

Copy and paste not enough, local adaptations and enforcement needed;

Respect the letter AND the spirit;

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European and national acts

Annex 13 fully implemented in your State? Directive 94/56/EC transposed in all EU States by now; However, varied effectiveness of investigative bodies; Legislation supportive in your State? Directive 2003/42/EC not yet transposed in some States; However, some impediments still remain; ESARR2 not implemented in full by many States.

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ESARR2 reportsN

umbe

r of

Sta

tes

4

9

6

15

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Noreporting

IrregularReporting

Low dataquality

Good dataquality

How many States report good data?

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Incident reports (15 States)

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

2002 2003 2004P

15 States

Runw ay Incursions

Inadequate Separation

Separation Min. Infringement

Data source : EUROCONTROL/SRU

Learn from the mistakes of others. You will not live long enough to make all of them yourself.

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Media and public

BD-700 Global Express (by Bombardier’s Canadair Division)One press article: Fast bomber aircraft with global range.

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Media and public

Confidentiality of information is crucial; However, secrecy is a different thing; Media will mostly demand (and get!) information in

difficult moments; By and large, the data obtained will be misinterpreted

and/or misused; To avoid this: permanent, targeted education,

communication campaigns

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Case study

Study on the three collisions in Europe: Paris CDG 2000; Milan Linate in 2001; Überlingen in 2002.

System breakdowns at NATS added; A balanced sample of newspapers from the five countries

involved: France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the UK.

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Structuralist vs human

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Representation of ATC

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European initiatives

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Safety culture

Awareness is relatively high in Europe; Alas, much remains at intention or statement level; Still a rift between management and ATCOs; Building and maintaining trust is vital; For this, communication is key; Try to meet the other party half-way.

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Supporting the safety culture

Several actions can strengthen safety culture: Training - very important but often sacrificed in

cost-cutting measures; Permanent reality checks: is it still working? Management involvement; Communication – permanent, diversified; All employees should feel confident to speak up. ACTION!

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Just culture

Apparently, ATM needs a “just culture” This is WRONG! A “just culture” for ATM will not help much; AVIATION greatly needs a just culture! Reaching critical mass will be much easier through a

wide civil aviation partnership; See Danish example.

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Best practice

Europe has best practice examples: Portugal; United Kingdom; Denmark; France; Rhodes airport.

Size does not matter; National culture does not matter.

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0

10

20

30

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50

60

70

80

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100

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Mat

urity

Sco

re %

2002

2004

Where we are today

Maturity of Formal Safety Framework in ECAC: REGs

70% Target

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70% Target

Where are we todayMaturity of Formal Safety Framework in ECAC:

ANSPs

20

70% Target

Where we need to be Maturity of Formal Safety Framework in ECAC:

ANSPs

21

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Questions?

Thank you!