AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS ARE effective, if often tragic, teachers, and the aviation community always learns greatly from them. Incidents - the accidents which didn't quite happen -- can be just as effective teachers, but the aviation community learns far less from them. The reason is fear of disclosure- a fear which has been compounded by a US Supreme Court ruling that USAir's confidential internal safety audits are not confidential. That ruling not only sets back the cause of safety, but could also scupper the US Federal Aviation Administration's embryo worldwide confidential safety-information-sharing project.
The Global Analysis and Information Network (GAIN) project is meant to lead to airlines sharing de-identified data, which could help to identify trends. The Court's ruling will dissuade at least US airlines from collecting the data in the first place.
There are already many confidential aviation-reporting systems scattered around the world, but few confidential safety-information-sharing networks. The core of many of those systems is British Airways' BASIS package, which has been sold to some 150 airlines. The BASIS package has also been adopted by Airbus Industrie, which is using it to build an information-sharing network among Airbus operators, and also by the European Regional Airlines Association.
Most such systems, however, are operated in isolation, for internal use. Not only are the raw data intended for internal consumption only; so too are the processed, analysed data and findings. The data, therefore, tend to reach only a fraction of the audience, which could find them useful.
Confidential reporting systems should be set up with the express purpose of disseminating (de-identified) incident data as widely as possible. The classic example is the UK-based Confidential Human-factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP), for those who feel uncomfortable about reporting through their airlines or national aviation authorities. The US-based pilots-only equivalent (ASRS), administered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is not the same. The difference is that, while the CHIRP is a truly anonymous system, data in the ASRS remain identifiable if a lawyer or other interested party has good reason to demand it through the courts. It is a similar identifiability, which lies at the root of the problems over the FAA's GAIN project.
Under the latest US legislation, a pilot could make a confidential report to the FAA, and that information would be absolutely protected from identifiable disclosure. Under the terms of the latest Supreme Court ruling, however, if the same pilot disclosed the same information to his airline, it would not be protected by confidentiality. If the FAA, having received a confidential report from a pilot, decided to take the matter up with that pilot's airline, even confidentially, that report would no longer be protected. Little wonder, then, that none of British Airways' BASIS customers is a US airline. There is indeed, the rather extraordinary potential situation that the FAA could help set up and operate it, but the GAIN would have no US data.
The USA's litigious culture has already ensured that US carriers, unusually, dare not fit quick-access recorders on their aircraft because of what lawyers might one day be able to make of the information.
Even if full protection is never available in the USA, perhaps the US airlines could think more positively about promoting the free interchange of anonymous data. One way or another, lawyers will find a way to unprotected information. They will normally only do so, however, in the event of an accident. If the GAIN, and systems like it, were to reduce the number of accidents, there would be no need to fear the lawyers. They are meant to help spot potential accidents and stop them before they happen, not to help lawyers get rich after they happen.
Source: Flight International
