Air Transport

Obstacles to the voluntary reporting of safety incidents include the absence of employee protection within voluntary reporting schemes at national and European level, a lack of understanding by judicial authorities and the wider public, and a lack of trust between staff and management in some air navigation service providers.

Supporters of "just culture" say it does not equate to immunity, but implies that disciplinary or criminal sanctions will only be taken in the event of proven culpability.

The Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) and European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) say criminal prosecution in all member states needs to focus strictly on culpability based on consciousness and wilfulness. If the apportionment of blame is encouraged "the inevitable result is that some ATM personnel will deliberately fail to report safety critical occurrences for fear of criminal enquiry or prosecution, even though they believe they have done nothing wrong", they say.

Noting that domestic legislation such as freedom of information laws can often override the International Civil Aviation Organisation's Annex 13 - which says that states conducting an investigation should not make records available for the purposes other than accident investigation, they recommend that existing European directives should foster the establishment of voluntary occurrence reporting schemes. They recommend air navigation service providers management and staff should agree clear safety reporting process and procedures, and explicitly avoid the apportionment of blame, while public opinion should be mobilised as a matter of urgency.

Commenting on the likely outcome of the planned just culture conference, International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Associations president Marc Baumgartner says: "It remains as important as ever that this conference tries to bridge the gap between clear aviation concerns and the legal world to strike the correct balance between safety and the judicial system."