Safety Promotion
December 2017
- objective statistical measures reflecting the state and evolution of civil aviation events, incidents and accidents in Spain during the period considered,
- information that will allow the identification of deviations or trends that may compromise the safety of operations, thus favoring the implementation of actions aimed at their mitigation; and
- assessment of the effect of actions from previous studies or exercises through comparative analyses.
- Establish a framework for cooperation between AESA and industry (groundhandling agents and airport managers), for greater communication and mutual knowledge.
- The participation of AESA as a reference and support for improvement in operational safety.
- The promotion of improved operational safety in the provision of groundhandling services.
- IATA Aviation Data Symposium 2017 held in Miami in November. It exposed AESA’s experience both in the development of its own methodologies and tools and in its participation in European projects such as Data4Safey or SafeClouds.
- Regional Safety Management Symposium organised by OACI (International Civil Aviation Organisation) in Tallinn, Estonia from 16 to 17 October 2017. Specifically, AESA’s involvement focused on the interaction between state safety programs (SSPs) and safety management systems (SMS) of service providers.
- Ice Formation in Flight
- FIS-In-Flight Information Service
- Loss of control due to loss and auger
- Safe use of air navigation technology
- Impact with Birds, a common risk with local particularities
- Ice Formation in Piston Engines
- Flight near high ground
- Weather forecast
- Decision-making
- Collision prevention
Publication of the Operational Safety Action Plan
The State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) has approved the Operational Safety Action Plan (PASO) 2017-2019, through Resolution of Director Isabel Maestre, whose purpose is to achieve the maximum development of the State Operational Safety Program (PESO) for Civil Aviation, with the aim of strengthening aviation safety.
The PASO has been prepared by the Agency in collaboration with the suppliers and the other public bodies involved, in order to achieve the safety objectives set out in the PESO. The plan describes the activities of the public bodies responsible for the supervision and control of operational safety as well as the suppliers of aeronautical services and products and of the other public bodies that are part of the PESO, aimed at improving safety in those areas that are identified as priorities.
The approval of the PASO demonstrates Spain’s commitment to the continuous improvement of safety in air transport. In this sense, our country has voluntarily acceded to the European Aviation Safety Plan (EPAS), despite the fact that the current Community legislation does not require this.
The Civil Aviation Operational Safety Action Plan 2017-2019 can be found at this link.
Publication of the Annual Report of the Event Notification System and CEANITA (Commission for the Study and Analysis of Notifications of Air Traffic Incidents)
The State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) has published the Joint Annual Report of the AESA Event Notification System (SNS) and the Committee on Study and Analysis of Notifications of Air Traffic Incidents (CEANITA) for 2016.
The purpose of the SNS is to receive, collect, store, classify, operate and analyse all notifications received in the system in accordance with the applicable rules set out in Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 on the reporting of occurrences in civil aviation. It thus contributes to the improvement of aviation safety, ensuring that its sole objective is the prevention of future accidents and incidents, without the aim of identifying faults or responsibilities and that relevant event information is treated with due confidentiality.
CEANITA, Interministerial Collegiate Body whose operating rules are established in Order PRE/697/2012 of 2 April, aims to provide advice and collaboration to the State Aviation Safety Agency and the Air Force Staff of the Ministry of Defence for the prevention of air traffic incidents and accidents. To this end, CEANITA studies and analyses these incidents and, where appropriate, proposes safety recommendations, thus contributing to the improvement of air navigation safety.
The purpose of this report is to present, on the one hand, a statistical exploitation carried out by the AESA Success Notification System (SNS) from the notifications received during 2015, through which you can obtain:
On the other hand, this report contains a summary of the activity of CEANITA corresponding to the study of those Air Traffic Incidents (ITA) that occurred during 2016 that have been analysed by this body, due to the associated risk assessment carried out by DESATI.
This report also complies with the requirement set out in Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 on occurrence reporting in civil aviation, which obliges Member States of the European Union to publish, at least once a year, a report to the public on the level of civil aviation safety.
The publication can be accessed through this link.
AESA publishes its risk prioritisation methodologies
AESA, as a safety supervisory authority, exercises its powers through a mixed surveillance and control system. The traditional prescriptive approach, based mainly on compliance and field inspection and audit, and impact-oriented, is complemented by a preventive approach based on performance, aviation safety and safety risk management, and process-oriented approach
This mixed system is structured around the State Operational Safety Program (PESO) and encompasses different tools. These tools include risk prioritisation methodologies in different areas where the Agency has supervisory responsibility.
These methodologies are AESA’s own development and are constantly evolving.
The Agency has published methodologies for commercial air transport, air work and air traffic services (ATS) supervision in Spanish. They can be accessed through the following links:
The objective is to establish the prioritisation of the inspection actions, indicating possible additional actions to those that were initially planned, as well as the reallocation of necessary resources. On the other hand, they facilitate the identification of areas subject to supervision, providing useful information to the inspection units for the development of their inspection tasks.
Promotion of safety culture
AESA, among its initiatives to promote operational safety, is promoting the safety culture of air operators, as part of the action plan, linked to the State Aviation Safety Program, and therefore located at the highest level.
The safety culture model, adopted by AESA, draws on the experience of high-reliability organisations and ATM service providers (air traffic management systems). This approach establishes relationships between human contribution and the safety management system.
The first step will be the edition of a White Paper on Safety Culture for Air Operators, which is scheduled to be published in the first half of 2018.
Holding of the National Land Assistance Forum
On December 14, the II National Land Assistance Forum was held with the aim of improving operational safety through the collaboration of all actors involved. For the event, promoted by the State Aviation Safety Agency, the following objectives were established:
The main airport operators, air operators and groundhandling agents participated in the event, as well as members of the Association of Land Assistance Services Companies (ASEATA) and the Spanish Association of Aviation Psychology (AEPA).
Throughout the morning there were several presentations in which AESA presented the balance of actions of the First Forum held in 2015, the international regulatory proposals on groundhandling services highlighting the initiatives and participation of the Spanish state both at European and international level, the new operating framework in the development of inspections with electronic administration and the evolution of notifications of events related to ground assistance. AEPA made a presentation on the Human Factors related to Earth Assistance activities.
In the afternoon, working groups were organised in order to identify from the point of view of Operational Security the possible threats and weaknesses in the sector’s own operation, analyse why and how they affect it and find strategies to manage them.
The objective of this day has been to know, from the hands of the sector, the issues that affect them the most or concern them in terms of safety. The conclusions and the rest of the documentation related to the day will be published on the AESA website.
Election of members of the Steering Board of ECCAIRS (European Centre for the Coordination of Accident and Incident Reporting Systems)
The Head of Safety Reporting Service of the State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA), Héctor Pedroche Alarcón, has been re-elected for a three-year term as a member of the European Commission’s ECCAIRS Steering Board. The election took place during the 20th meeting of the ECCAIRS Steering Committee of the European Commission, held in Brussels on 17 November 2017.
Héctor Pedroche Alarcón has been a member of the group since its creation in 2014 and throughout this time has been actively involved in its mission to guide and support the development of ECCAIRS with the aim of improving aviation safety and meeting the objectives of Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 on occurrence reporting in civil aviation, and Article 18(5) of Regulation (EU) No 996/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010 on the investigation and prevention of accidents and incidents in civil aviation.
ECCAIRS (European Centre for the Coordination of Accident and Incident Reporting Systems) is a cooperative network of European Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA) and Security Investigation Authorities (SIA). The project is managed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (DG JRC) at the request of the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) and in close cooperation with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
AESA Issues ‘Good Practice’ Recommendations to Prevent Shocks Between Aircraft
The State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) has developed a ‘Wingtip Clearance’ Good Practice Guide for Aircraft Shock Prevention for Airport Suppliers, TWR Suppliers and Air Carriers.
In recent years there have been several collisions or quasi collisions between aircraft in taxi, one of them being stopped at a waiting point and the other rolling along the adjacent taxiways, therefore, the Airport Inspection Division of AESA formed a working group with the Spanish airport sector composed of safety and operations managers of AENA, ENAIRE, of the main airport managers, TWR suppliers, pilots, controllers of TWR and the Professional Association of Air Controllers (APROCTA).
The objective of the group has been to identify the causes and contributing factors to finally issue a series of recommendations aimed at the prevention of this type of collision, which AESA has published through an information brochure.
The Good Practices recommended to airport managers focus on the installation of BP elevated lamps in the margins of the TWY oriented towards the cockpit; extend the signal and lighting of the PE including the margins of the TWY to make them look better; as well as avoiding, in the design of taxiing streets, entrances to the track at angles other than 90 degrees.
TWR providers recommend providing extra information to pilots on board, either through frequency or by means of signs installed at the point; and to airlines that avoid being located very far from the PEP since it can affect other streets and, in case of doubts about the distances to pass safely, the aircraft must be stopped.
Triptych Good Practices Shock prevention between aircraft “Wingtip Clearance”
European Action Plan for the prevention of runway incursions
The third edition of the European Action Plan for the Prevention of Runway Incursions (EAPPRI), in which the State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) has actively collaborated, including safety recommendations for all actors involved, is now available on the Agency’s website.
The recommendations of this document are addressed to airports, airlines, controllers, and national supervisory authorities and AESA has been actively involved in the drafting of this new version of the document led by EUROCONTROL together with other European authorities such as the British CAA and the French DGAC.
AESA’s role has focused in particular on the area of recommendations of airports, in particular, the Agency has led the drafting of two appendices of guide material relating to airport recommendations: Appendix J “Use of aeronautical ground lighting that protects the runway” and Appendix L “Maintenance, inspections, works in progress/temporary modifications of the aerodrome”.
AESA’s work has only just begun with publication; from now on, an important effort will have to be made to disseminate and disseminate its implementation through collaboration with the Spanish Aeronautical sector such as the Local Committees on Track Safety, National Forums, Working Groups, etc.
Closure of the 2017 firefighting campaign
AESA and COPAC organised last November, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Works, a day aimed at taking stock of operational safety during firefighting activities in 2017.
In addition to the organisers, the Commission of Inquiry into Civil Aviation Accidents and Incidents (CIAIAC) of the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and the Environment (MAPAMA), the Air Army (EA), the Military Emergency Unit (UME), responsible for firefighting units of several Autonomous Communities (Galicia, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia, Valencia, Catalonia), and representatives of the industry including various air operators, participated in the presentations or attended the debate.
Among the proposed new lines of work and areas with the possibility of development were the organisation and logistics of the operations referring especially to the human factor, the unification of specifications in the specifications for the competitions for the provision of air extinguishing services, the air control of extinction operations, the standardisation of air operating procedures (with emphasis on radio communications), the coordination of efforts between different organisations during the fires (autonomic, state, military, international,...), the possibility of implementing technological innovation assistants, the personal and professional situation of a part of the crew and maintenance personnel who only have salary income during the months of the campaigns (resulting in a permanent flight of talent and experience to other aviation sectors), systems and procedures for locating crashed aircraft, etc.
Along with those described above, the problem of the transfer of personnel and means from the usual bases and work areas to the big fires was central in the debate, with which this leads to: orographic difficulty, no beaconing of sectors of entry and exit to the fire and in the operations at low level to drink water or refuel, peaks of accumulation of many local and foreign means at specific points (carousels of discharge, waiting, and positioning flights, and in small aerodromes, refueling areas, water points) operating with different procedures, without air control, and in different radio frequencies. In summary, during the day these and other issues were discussed, and possible measures were discussed that could be undertaken to influence preventively with the aim of preventing accidents and incidents and improving efficiency in the extinction of forest fires.
Participation of AESA in different international fora in relation to operational safety
The State Aviation Safety Agency has participated, through the Director of Safety Assessment and Internal Technical Audit, in different international forums in which operational safety issues were discussed:
Day of presentation of the roadmap for the regulation of European general aviation
The day was organised by AESA and the Real Aero Club of Spain (RACE) at the Madrid airfield of Cuatro Vientos on September 30, and responsible for the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) participated.
The presentation of the day was given by the Director of AESA, Isabel Maestre Moreno, and the Director General of ENAIRE, Ángel Luis Arias.
In 2014, the European Aviation Safety Agency committed to the general aviation sector to devote its efforts to creating a general aviation regulation that is better, simpler and easier to apply, from the recognition that the current standard extends commercial aviation concepts to general aviation that are not proportional to the risk that general aviation entails.
Thus, EASA together with the European Commission and the participation of other stakeholders in the sector have launched the so-called “Road Map for Regulation of General Aviation” to meet EASA’s six commitments to the sector.
On the other hand, during the presentation of the day the sector was reminded of the importance of notification of occurrences in the field of general aviation and a triptych was presented which aims precisely to promote notification in the general aviation and sports sector. It can be accessed through this link.
AESA publishes the European Agency’s General Aviation Safety Promotion Brochures in Spanish
The State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) has translated into Spanish and published the ten leaflets promoting safety in General Aviation prepared by the European General Aviation Safety Team (EGAST), with the aim of providing the necessary information and promoting safety in this aviation sector.
On the AESA website you can find these brochures that are intended to provide guidance to pilots of non-complex aircraft. The promotion of safety is one of the objectives of AESA and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The brochures available are:
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