JULIAN MOXON / LONDON
Eurocontrol and the European Commission have agreed on the need for legislation in EC member states to protect air traffic controllers from prosecution following safety-related incidents.
A workshop held in Brussels in early January agreed that unwarranted prosecution creates a culture preventing the open reporting, collection and analysis of air traffic management (ATM) incidents. "It results in a 'don't get caught' culture in which few reports are made and consequently little systematic improvement occurs," says Eurocontrol.
The agency cites a Delta Air Lines incident in 1998 as an example. A Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 taking off in low visibility conditions from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport was forced to abandon its take-off roll when the pilots spotted a Boeing 747 being towed across the runway. The subsequent criminal prosecution, in which three controllers were found "not to be devoid of blame", but not punished, resulted in a 50% reduction in the number of reports received from controllers about ATM incidents. "We are still suffering because of it," says Eric Kroese, head of Dutch ATM service provider LVNL.
The workshop looked at ways of introducing an open reporting culture and cited Danish legislation, which guarantees immunity from prosecution and confidentiality, as an example of a successful system. It recommends that European states "review and adapt their legislation to eliminate or mitigate the effects that legal impediments have on open reporting of ATM incidents". A Eurocontrol spokesman said the issue was of "crucial" importance for improving ATM safety.
Source: Flight International
