EASA have released their 2024 Annual Safety Review. What are the highlights, lowlights, stats and plans? And more importantly, what can each of us individually take ownership for and help to improve?

The Stats

Over the last decade, globally, there have been approximately ten fatal accidents a year. In 2023 this dropped to just two. Still two too many but it shows a significant improvement in safety, and with passenger/traffic numbers around 95% of pre-Covid levels, it’s a big tick for safety!

To highlight the stat more positively – that’s 7.3 million flights without any fatal accidents.

Now, I highly doubt a single one of those flights went without some incident occurring. But the outcomes were good (not unsafe) meaning of those 7.3million flights there were likely as many (if not many, many, many more) incidents, events, mistakes, lapses, errors, eeny-weeny whoopsies that were fixed by the people involved!

So a big tick for Human Factors and competencies too!

An Overview

EASA start out with a mention of the geopolitical landscape impacting commercial air transport. In other words, conflict zones! They are still causing a whole lot of issues from lack of airspace availability to GPS interference.

EASA’s CZIBs page provide the best resource for current conflict zones and the warnings/prohibitions and mitigations associated with them. The Aviation Place also has an e-learning course to help swot up on these.

EASA also highlights the serious accident at Tokyo Haneda and the need for improved runway safety.

At aerodromes, the most common incident recorded is ‘ground collision’, with 108 reports for the last year. Overall, aerodrome and ground handling safety is down to 1.7 accidents per million movements though, and with 17 non-fatal accidents/incidents, it is the lowest number in the last decade.

Looking at ATM/ANS, there were no fatalities and the serious accident rate has decreased a lot. The approach phase remains the most affected phase, followed by en-route and then take-off.

Tell Me More…

Fatal accidents and serious incidents have decreased, however, events resulting in injury (non-fatal accidents) have risen.

Commercial Air Transport (including cargo) ‘top categories’ for accidents/serious incidents has shifted and the top categories from over the last 5 years are:

• SCF-NP: System/component malfunction or failure
• MAC: Airprox/ loss of separation/ (near) midair collision
  • This is the highest occurrence for non-fatal incidents
• SCF-PP: Powerplant failure or malfunction
• GCOL: Ground collision
• RAMP: Ground handling
• RE: Runway excursion
• F-NI: Fire/ smoke
• RI: Runway incursion
• ATM/ANS: Air Traffic Management/ Air Navigation Services
• ARC: Abnormal runway contact
• NAV: Navigation error
• TURB: Turbulence related
• MED: Medical related

Approach, en-route then take-off are the phases where the most bad happens!

What can we do?

Well, EASA have a safety plan and you can read about that here. But let’s talk about what we (each of us – you, me, them, someone else who accidentally finds themself reading this etc etc) can actually, practically, right now do…

SCF-NP: System/component malfunction or failure | SCF-PP: Powerplant failure or malfunction

OK, we can’t do much about things breaking, but we can do a fair amount about how we handle things breaking.

Our “toolbox” of competencies are key to this. How we react to surprise events, and how we manage them to find the optimal solution and the safest outcome is critical. A great way to develop our competencies is to reflect on past events and how we dealt with them – what went well, less well, what we might want to do differently in the future.

We can also improve our technical knowledge so we know what a failure means for the operation, ensure our situational awareness is good so that we are able to both identify issues and build plans (and that doesn’t mean having a plan for every possible event but rather having an idea of ‘what we will do if…’) efficiently and effectively.

Basically, ensuring we are resilient and adaptable, and that the operation is as well!

MAC: Airprox/ loss of separation/ (near) midair collision | GCOL: Ground collision

This is a good one for highlighting the need for increased awareness, understanding and collaboration between ATM and pilot roles, because both actively and directly impact this all the time.

Pilots can help support this by communicating with ATC regarding their performance and capabilities, particularly on approach – if conditions are going to prevent the aircraft slowing down as quickly/ maintaining a speed for as long (as usual) etc does ATC need to know?

The same applies for ATC – is your safety/efficiency goal reliant on certain requirements from pilots? Make it clear so they can advise if unable.

Barriers against expectation bias, assumptions and misconceptions (with regards aircraft performance, capability etc) through shared mental models and communication can help reduce loss of separation events significantly.

The same applies on the ground – taxi errors, being too “heads down” and losing SA all contribute to ground collisions. Being alert to your own errors, but also those of others to help mitigate them rapidly is critical to preventing these incidents.

RAMP: Ground handling

We’re all human, we all make mistakes. EASA are bringing in mandatory training and accreditation for ground handlers, but it requires the whole team to work together and to support one another to prevent incidents and accidents arising from those single errors that can build into chains.

Roles are increasingly siloed in aviation, which is leading to errors between roles and from people not picking up mistakes or lapses from others. Do you understand the challenges a ground handling role might face? If not, how can you be more aware and supportive of safety and efficiency across the team?

In 2023, an accidental parking brake setting during pushback caused injury to a ramp agent – knowing our own procedures but not becoming ‘siloed’ in our role is critical to ensuring safety across the team!

RE: Runway excursion | RI: Runway incursion

These are two of the most preventable. Especially runway incursions. Runway safety needs attention and focus, and that has to come from individuals as well as operators and safety authorities.

A refresher on the importance (for pilots) of sticking to limitations, doing (valid) performance checks, carrying out TEM briefings and maintaining good communication is critical.

Runway incursions are not just other vehicles straying onto runways – aircraft failing to vacate when expected, loss of separation on the approach, misunderstood clearances (communication issues, expectation bias etc) can all lead to these as well.

Knowing what leads to runway excursions (we’re thinking unstable approaches for one) is something both pilots and ATCOs can consider – how might your actions help prevent/ potentially contribute to these?

At The Aviation Place we have an e-learning course on Runway Incursions to help!

ARC: Abnormal runway contact

What leads to abnormal runway contact? This is one for the pilots to consider, but also one for the ATCOs to maybe think on as well.

A better awareness of environmental conditions which could lead to these, being able to carry out quick and effective threat and error management (on the day) and having good SA will help reduce these events.

As will good handling – don’t be ashamed to ask your operator (or a colleague) for support if you think you need additional training.

We are going to throw in a request to operators – ensure your company has a good safety culture which is open to learning and development, and which is non punitive. This is the only way for people to learn and develop from incidents.

NAV: Navigation error

GPS interference is causing big issues in the navigation department and right now, not much can be done to prevent it. Which means having a good awareness of where and what GPS interference does, and the mitigation methods for it, is critical.

EASA recently released an updated SIB on exactly this. It is worth a read, alongside your operator’s guidance.

TURB: Turbulence related

Turbulence events are on the up, partly because of increased CAT over the NAT (and other spots). Increasing traffic levels at airports (leading to wake turbulence events), as well as congested airspace (conflict zones aren’t helping that one!) are also causing a rise in potential turbulence encounters.

In 2023, there were two serious injuries attributed to encounters with turbulence during flight.

We can’t stop turbulence. We can’t escape it. But we can understand the threat, know how to (better) identify the potential for turbulence, and have a plan on what to do in the event of experiencing it. For ATCOs, ensuring reports are shared with pilots and supporting them in alternative routes/levels as required helps a lot because it gives a ‘heads-up’.

The Aviation Place has an e-learning course on exactly this if you need a bit of a refresher.

A wise man recently said…

2023 was a good year, but there is no room for complacency!

Everyone, at every level of the aviation team, needs to take ownership of improving safety within their role and across the team as a whole. Having an “it won’t happen to me” or an “it’s not my responsibility” attitude are not going to help.

We all need to build awareness and understanding of the threats out there, ensuring we have solid mitigations for them, and we need to work together better.

My ‘Taking Ownership of Safety” plans?

• Improve my tech knowledge (I’m flying a new type and haven’t quite got to grips with it all yet)
• Think about how what I do impacts other roles/safety and efficiency goals more (ie not blaming ATC when stuff doesn’t work out/ learning a little about the others on the team)
• Communicate better (I’m ELP6… and often that makes me the worst for impatient, incoherent jibberjabber)
• Keep making strange e-learning courses for anyone who is interested.