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The rules regarding how quickly the aviation industry must report accidents to the ATSB will change from 1 January 2023.
The most significant alterations mean that there will now be four different categories of aircraft operations, with different reporting requirements for each, plus a new push for sport aviation bodies to alert authorities to incidents.
The ATSB originally consulted with the industry on the changes earlier this year and said feedback was included when the new measures were drawn up.
The four categories will soon comprise Category A (passenger transport), Category B (commercial non-passenger, including medium to large RPA), Category C (non-commercial) aircraft operation, and Category D (small non-excluded RPA and certain uncrewed balloons) aircraft operation.
The ATSB’s chief commissioner, Angus Mitchell, said, “Higher categories, in particular passenger-carrying and commercial operations, will have a greater reporting focus due to the greater public safety benefit that could be derived. Non-commercial aircraft operations and uncrewed RPA and balloons will have lower reporting requirements.”
The new regulations list incidences that must be reported to the ATSB as immediately, as soon as practical or within 72 hours.
“Changes to the regulations ensure immediately reportable matters are those more likely to be considered for investigation by the ATSB, while reducing the reporting requirements on industry for those matters the ATSB is less likely to consider for investigation,” Mitchell said.
Other changes to the regulations include aligning aircraft operation categories and definitions with CASA flight operations rules introduced in December 2021, and aligning definitions of aircraft accident, serious aircraft incident, aircraft incident, fatal injury and serious injury with International Civil Aviation Organization definitions.
“Changes to the regulations also simplify reporting requirements for industry by removing prescriptive lists of individual kinds of occurrences and defining these concepts more broadly.”
You can read more about the new rules here.
