Occurrence Reporting System
Who should notify?
- the commander of an aircraft registered in a Member State or of an aircraft registered outside the Union but used by an operator for which a Member State ensures the supervision of operations or by an operator established in the Union, or, where the commander is not in a position to report the event, any other crew member following him in the chain of command of the aircraft;
- persons engaged in the design, manufacture, control of continuous navigability, maintenance or modification of an aircraft, or any equipment or part thereof, under the supervision of a Member State or under the supervision of the Agency;
- persons signing an air navigability review certificate or a certificate of release to service in respect of an aircraft, or any equipment or part thereof, under the supervision of a Member State or under the supervision of the Agency;
- persons performing a function requiring the authorisation of a Member State as staff members of an air traffic service provider to whom responsibilities related to air navigation services have been entrusted, or as flight information service officers;
- persons performing a role related to the security management of an airport to which Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1) applies;
Regulation (EU) 376/2014 lays down explicit reporting obligations both to persons (pilot in command of the aircraft, persons engaged in design and manufacturing, maintenance personnel, service providers, etc.) and to organisations which, in the performance of their duties, are aware of events that have occurred. Specifically, article 4, paragraph 6, lists the following obligations:
It is important to emphasise that, according to this Regulation, the obligation to notify concerns a significant proportion of private pilots as the obligation is imposed on the ‘commander of an aircraft registered in a Member State’ with the exception of aircraft referred to in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2018.
Persons not required to notify may make a notification where they perceive that the facts may pose a real or potential danger to aviation safety without a defined time limit for that purpose.
Moreover, at national level, Royal Decree 1088/2020 of 9 December 2020 supplementing the regime applicable to the reporting of civil aviation occurrences extends the application of the Regulation to firefighting and search and rescue activities carried out by any civil aircraft, whether manned or not, falling within the scope of Law 48/1960 of 21 July on Air Navigation.
Therefore, occurrence reports in the framework of those activities are part of the occurrence reporting system operated by the State Aviation Safety Agency, for which the organisations carrying out those activities, as well as its employees or contract staff, are subject, in addition to the provisions of the Royal Decree, to compliance with the provisions of the Regulation as regards explicit reporting obligations.
