Accident spate injects new urgency into body’s efforts to spotlight rogue aviation authorities that fail to improve
The aviation safety failings of states that do not adhere to International Civil Aviation Organisation standards and recommended practices (SARPs) will be publicised to all other states, says president of the ICAO council Assad Kotaite.
This will be done by presenting to all 188 ICAO contracting states the results of its safety audits on every country inspected, including ICAO’s recommendations.
Kotaite has used the recent spate of airline crashes around the world – after several years with few major accidents – to flag up ICAO’s latest action under its universal safety oversight audit programme (USOAP), and to emphasise the fact that such a scheme is essential to force continued improvement.
ICAO has described its latest USOAP implementation phase as a “unified strategy to resolve safety-related deficiencies”, and Kotaite says: “This greater transparency should encourage concerted action on the implementation of corrective measures.”
Not only will all states receive copies of all USOAP audits and recommendations, but also of the state’s remedial action plan and a survey of the implementation of corrective measures.
USOAP has been operating since 1999, but Kotaite had always promised it would progress from being a system of flagging-up to each state the details of its own safety oversight system failures to one that would become progressively more public.
“Procedures for the application of Article 54j of the Convention on International Civil Aviation [have been] communicated to all contracting states in order to deal with states having significant compliance shortcomings with respect to [SARPs],” he says. The article stipulates: “If a state fails to carry out a recommendation of the ICAO Council, the Organisation can communicate the shortcoming to all other contracting states.”
Kotaite adds: “In the fall of 2005, ICAO will consider the adoption of standards for setting up safety management systems.”
DAVID LEARMOUNT/LONDON
Source: Flight International
