The European single sky needs high quality, simple incident reporting.

Abstract

The focus here is on mid-air collisions for aircraft under air traffic control (ATC), but recognising that (eg) accidents on runways and taxiways can be equally catastrophic. How can Europe know if safety levels are consistently high in all its States? Levels of safety are very high, so there are very few accidents, certainly not on a State basis, to make such an assessment. Hence, data from ATM safety incidents have to be used. What is an incident – or a severe incident? Traditionally, severity is defined in terms of the degree of risk associated with an observed event – but this just replaces one abstraction by another; or through assessments by an expert group – so how is consistency assured between States and over time?