Unreported Incidents
 

About 10 months ago a serious incident occurred with two jets on final approach to a regional airport in the UK. This incident was reported to the Air Traffic Manager who failed to report further. and it was never investigated. My question is, how many other people are doing this?

Recent discussion here

Sorry should have said "how many units are hiding this?". In todays society the reports should be made if they are not then the bullit should hit them.

In today's 'benchmarking' environments, often a manager's remuneration is linked to his KPI's, and incidents/movement is a common KPI.

So, do you think this fosters an open and honest safety culture? Yeah right. From the top down. Safety and commerce make interesting bedfellows.

In the interests of safety all incidents should be reported. Failure to do so shows a lack of professional conduct and should be treated as gross misconduct. I'm sure that the fare paying passengers would not be happy if they knew that incidents were not being reported. All accidents are a chain of events, this could be the start.

nginear provides no information in his profile about what aspect of aviation he is involved in - I'd like to know. I'd also like to hear more about the alleged "incident". Plenty of members of the public see "terrifying" incidents which turn out to be quite normal, safe operations.

In the UK I've only worked at one other airport apart from Heathrow and at the latter every incident was fully investigated.

Reported by whom ??

The pilots and controllers involved have a Mandatory Occurrence Scheme which they can (and indeed on occasion are legally obliged to) use to make the necessary reports themselves. They can make the report direct to the CAA and be independent of any management chain.

If it was a member of the public who made their concerned 'report', then the professionals involved obviously had no concerns and there was no 'MOR' incident. End of story.

More detail required if you want the real answer to your query.

It was reported by one of the ATCO's to the Air Traffic Manager. Please read the link provided by Lon More for more info.

And the ATCO didn't insist it was sent or sent it direct themselves to SRG when the MATS did nothing about it ??

Guess who's breaking the law ?? (Both of them it seems !!)

6 Reporting Procedure

6.1 Submission of Reports

6.1.1 The ANO places the primary responsibility for reporting with individuals. However, the interests of flight safety are best served by full participation, in the investigation and follow-up, by the organisation involved. Therefore, wherever possible, the CAA encourages the use of company reporting systems, with a responsible person(s) within the organisation being nominated to receive all reports and to establish which reports from individuals within the organisation meet the desired criteria for an occurrence report to the CAA. Correlation of operational and technical aspects and the provision of any relevant supplementary information, e.g. the reporter’s assessment and immediate action to control the problem, is an important part of such activity. With such systems the reporting level within the organisation can be, and often is, set at a lower level than the CAA requirement in order to provide a wider monitoring of the organisation’s activities. However, when the employee making such a report is a person having a duty to report to the CAA in accordance with the ANO, the company must tell him if his report has been passed on to the CAA or not. If not, and the employee is convinced that it should, he must have the right to insist that the report be passed to the CAA or to report it directly to the CAA himself. Procedures to ensure that this right of the individual reporter is maintained must be incorporated into the organisation’s reporting procedures and be clearly stated in the relevant instructions to staff.

If it was a scary incident how come the pilots didn't file a report?

What a great lack of professionalism. When I look at the associated thread I cannot believe it, not because I do not think it is untrue but the whole scenario. Members of the UK Airprox board failing to report incidents. Unit Managers failing to report incidents. ATCO's failing to report incidents. SRG failing to do anything about it. What is going on? This is not a small matter but a major one, failure to act on people who are breaking the law is inexcusable. The aviation profession is supposed to be the safest and most highly regulated one in the world. Obviousely not.

qcode - someone else who prefers to remain totally anonymous. Why don't you publish some details in your profile??

HD

I figured out what you used to do for a living by your user name. I realise you were only an ATCO so if you cannot figure what I do then I will explain. I am an ENGINEER. If you need further clarification the please look in the dictionary, I cannot find one for you.

Rgds

The whole point is, regardless of being anonymous (which is the point of this forum), is the lack of professional people complying with the rules that they are supposed to comply with. The issue of worldwide aviation safety issues which have to be complied with is very important. People are breaking the law and getting away with it. Wait for the results of the next major aviation catastrophe, lack of reporting could be part of the cause. It has been aired here, if nothing is done about it then it will have at least been recorded.
I hope you aviation professionals have got the balls to sort it out, I'm going on holiday in two weeks and if my plane crashes due to anything concerned with this then my lawyer is ready.

Having filed against myself for something that was entirely my fault I cannot see why others cannot do the same. We are all human and will make the occasional mistake. I found out some things about myself by following my investigation and it only makes me a better controller having been there. I will never file an incident thats not related directly to me, but would hope the controllers concerned do themselves. I will mention things to my managers, but its up to them where they take that.

From the original thread:The key word being "heard"

If you are looking for serious comment post something more authorative than that.

Despite being "only an ATCO" HD has probably been in aviation a lot longer than you and although that does not automatically qualify him for respect I would consider his posts carefully before jumping in with both feet.

BTW Didn't engineers build the Titanic? :8

qcode Maybe you would like to insert the word "allegedly" in there somewhere?

Actually that's NOT the point of this Forum, it is merely one of the operating conditions for it. The point of the Forum is to discuss ATC topics.

Pretty slim odds, but no doubt compensation is covered in law (Warsaw Convention, etc). Hopefully your lawyer will be bigger and better than those which get the big bucks from airlines, ATC, manufacturers, etc. Does he practice in aviation compensation as his main job ?


119.5

The most unprofessional action here lies with the ATCO involved who did NOT ensure that he complied with the MOR scheme. If the ATS Manager said he was not submitting the report , and told the ATCO filing it he was not doing so, then he is complying with the Scheme. Responsibility for submitting the report then lies with the Reporting ATCO. It seems to me like some folk are trying to make **** stick to the Manager ATS, which kind of backfires when you read the MOR Scheme requirements. Whilst it is desireable that an employer has open reporting and will forward everything to the CAA, they are not legally mandated to do so. Provided they have the facility for staff to be told that their report is not being submitted and a right for them either to insist the company do send it or a right to send it themselves, then the law is being adhered to.

nginear

I`m not normally given to comments of a personal nature as I don`t see the point unless there`s a bit of humour involved but in this case I`m prepared to make an exception.

Having previously read your posts on "slot abuse" it appears from your tone that you have some serious issues particularly with regard to the Satco at your unit.

Perhaps it may be more prudent to have a word with him face to face rather than just use this forum to have a dig in disguise about things that from your point of view are only hearsay and as for having a pop at HD even an engineer should no better!!

Kind Regards TR

Over here it is much easier. You report the incident to your supervisor who is supposed to report it up the chain. The good news is that if someone higher up sits on it and gets caught, that is one of our firing offenses <G>...

regards

Scott

Sounds like an excellent scheme Scott :ok:

Do ATCOs also have the 'get out of jail free' card if they file a NASA Air Safety Report instead ??