The Secrecy of Safety

Bringing criminal charges into aviation occurrences resulting from inadvertent operational errors may hinder the development and free exchange of safety information which is essential to improve aviation safety, with a potential adverse effect on it.

Recent years have seen a trend in two particular factors: first an increase in the use of safety data collection systems and their contribution to flight safety compared with that gained from accident and incident investigations. Second there has been an increase in the number of occasions on which information gained either from accident or incident analysis or from safety data collection systems has been used in criminal or disciplinary proceedings against the individuals involved. A recent example of note was the use of an air accident investigation report in the criminal trial of a Japan Airlines pilot. In the event, the captain was found not guilty of charges arising out of death and injuries caused when his aircraft encountered turbulence.

In a small number of extreme cases there has been considerable tension between the criminal and technical investigation authorities and their respective responsibilities. Unfortunately those tensions are likely to be at their greatest in the immediate aftermath of a major accident with large scale loss of life when media or political demands for a scapegoat are at their most insistent and the likelihood of an objective determination of the best manner of resolving the situation is perhaps at its lowest.

At the 35th ICAO Assembly in Montreal between 28 September and 4 October 2004 a draft resolution is to be debated which is designed to secure greater legal protection and confidentiality for information in safety data collection systems, whether obtained voluntarily or under compulsion. In its briefing for the debate ICAO identifies three categories of safety data collection systems: self-reporting, electronic capture (e.g. Flight Operations Quality Assurance programmes) and direct observation (e.g. audit crews observing from the flight deck). These systems, which provide much information on errors which do not result in an incident, combine with investigations into accidents and incidents to provide aviation entities with a fuller understanding of the threats to safety. Neither source is complete on its own. And while there is considerable protection from the possible adverse effects upon individuals of the (often mandatory) processes associated with...