David Learmount/London
EUROPE IS EDGING closer to the creation of a confidential aviation-safety reporting system. Proponents of the idea, known as EUCARE, expect a formal proposal to emerge from a 12 September meeting in Brussels.
The likely framework, say sources close to the EUCARE, would be a network of national or regional confidential reporting systems linked to a central unit able to set standards and operate a combined analytical database. At present, in Europe, only Germany and the UK have national systems.
The EUCARE's steering committee, led by its chairman Jean-Pol Henrotte, will propose to the meeting that the organisation should have the status of a European Commission "satellite agency". The proposals, including a recommendation for the organisation's operating structure, will then be put to the European Union (EU) Transport Council for approval.
At present, the EUCARE exists only in prototype, as a function of Germany's newly formed confidential reporting system run by the Technical University of Berlin. Despite its low profile, however, the EUCARE has already received some 300 reports in its first 20 months.
The EUCARE's steering committee, consisting of civil-aviation experts from several EU countries, will consider the following operating structures for the organisation, and recommend one of them, according to Henrotte:
a completely centralised unit operating directly as Europe's main confidential reporting system;
a "decentralised" unit - meaning its function would be completely devolved to national or regional confidential reporting systems;
a central unit fed with data by national/regional confidential reporting systems, entrusted with a standards- and policy-setting role. It would also be responsible for the central database.
Source: Flight International
