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• Fear of punishment by the CAA or employer, or both.

• Belief that the only visible result of a report is investigation which sometimes means negative consequences, but never a positive response.

• Pilots see incident reports as more ‘red tape’.

• They feel admitting a mistake makes them look inferior to their peers.

(This is the usual reason RPT crews give for Knowing the above, BASI Director, Ron Cooper decided safety must be the first concern and the gap in the figures needs to be made up to eliminate hazards he’s sure exist.

Consequently, from the first of July, BASI introduced CAIRConfidential Aviation Incident Reporting. All pilots have already received copies of CAIR forms which are laid out in aerogramme style. They are also available at briefing offices and training organisations. If a pilot is involved in a human factors-related incident, it’ll be a simple matter to fill in a form and drop it in a letter box – post free.

Ron’s given a personal guarantee that only three people, himself included, will be allowed into the CAIR office. CAIR manager, Larry Sheehan and his assistant will be the only ones who’ll see the raw forms with names attached.

If the report is clear, the identifier strip will be removed and returned to the reporter in a plain envelope with an ordinary postage stamp. If Larry feels the information needs clarification, he’ll ring the reporter, then return the identifier. Either way and even if they’re snowed under and haven’t had a chance to get the details into the database, all reports are shredded after three days.

Ron Cooper says CAIR stands on 3 legs – confidentiality, provision of information and doing something useful. The third leg will be visible to pilots with a quarterly newsletter with verbatim segments of de-identified reports in the CAA’s Aviation Safety Digest. BASI hopes this will also encourage other pilots who’ve had similar experiences to contribute. As the database builds, BASI expects to be able to make recommendations to regulators, operators and manufacturers. Even though it has been in operation for only a few months some affirmative data has already emerged which has subsequently led to the CAA amending procedures in several areas.

A similar programme in the US has been operating for ten years and receives about 1,000 reports a month; the ten year total is more than 55,000. They’ve produced 835 alert bulletins on hazards, and half have gone to the FAA. There’ve been 971 special data requests. 80% of these have come from the FAA. 34 Research reports on topics such as fatigue, information transfer problems, controlled flight into terrain, cockpit distractions and altitude deviations have come from the database information and more than 80 issues of a one-page feedback newsletter have been produced. The UK CAA also has a similar programme (CHIRPS) which has proven successful and is widely accepted within the aviation community.

Specifically, GAIR is looking for reports which meet the following criteria:

• Incidents directly involving flight crew cockpit performance;

• Incidents reported by flight crew directly invoived in those incidents;

• Incident reports submitted on CAIR forms; and

• Incidents not reported as 225s.

If the report doesn’t meet those specifications and doesn’t constitute a wilful breach of the ANRs, it’ll be sent back with a suggestion that it be re-submitted as a 225. CAIR doesn’t grant confidentiality to the reporter of an accident or a wilful breach of the ANRs, although both Ron Cooper and Larry Sheehan admit the latter can be difficult to prove.

The other occasion when confidentiality can’t be guaranteed is when the incident concerns a design deficiency relating to an aircraft type that is operator-specific reporter’s identity will still be protected. Under most circumstances, though, Ron guarantees protection of the identity of the reporter, other persons directly involved and the owner and operator of the aircraft involved.

He’s realistic enough to recognise entrenched pilot distrust of the Department, but he and Larry are determined to see CAIR work, even if it takes 3 or 4 years of unblemished work to reach its potential.

Ron’s operating philosophy is that the pilot is responsible for safety, so it’s up to pilots to do their bit to reduce Australia’s average of 235 accidents a year. CAIR just may be the opportunity thousands of pilots have wanted for years and it may finally knock the 225 bogey on the head, once and for all.

For the first 6 months, CAIR has been restricted to aircrew (sport aviation to jumbos) while ATC will come into the second period effective January 1st 1989. So successful (reports received in the first 3 months of operation are nearly double the number expected) is the programme that it will also be extended to maintenance areas from next March.