Typically, the ATSB safety reporting team receives more than 17,000 notifications of safety occurrences each year, spread over aviation, marine and rail.
While there may be duplicate notifications of the same occurrence and many of the notifications submitted are about matters not required to be reported under the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003, each one is reviewed and recorded.
The level of investigative response is determined by resource availability and factors such as those detailed below. These factors (expressed in no particular order) may vary in the degree to which they influence ATSB decisions to investigate and respond. Factors include:
The ATSB will release a final report at the conclusion of an investigation, detailing contributing factors, safety issues and other findings. However, at any time during the course of an investigation, should we uncover safety critical information we will immediately share that with relevant parties so they can take appropriate safety action.
Depending on the complexity of the occurrence and the scope of the investigation, the ATSB may also produce preliminary and interim reports.
The ATSB conducts different levels of investigation according to the anticipated scope and scale of the work required to determine the contributing factors to a safety occurrence.
New reporting requirements for safety occurrences involving remotely piloted aircraft (or drones) took effect on 30 September 2021.
The Transport Safety Investigation Regulations 2021 require the reporting of certain transport safety occurrences to the ATSB as immediately or routine reportable matters, and introduced updated requirements for operators of certain types of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) to make reports to the ATSB.
ATSB policy provides for identifying most organisations in its transport safety investigations. Most organisations directly involved in any aviation occurrence investigated by the ATSB are identified in the report and on the investigation web page.
The policy ensures the ATSB’s compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s recommended practices. It also ensures that the ATSB has a consistent and transparent approach across all of its aviation, rail and marine safety investigations.
The International Confidential Aviation Safety Systems Group
The International Confidential Aviation Safety Systems (ICASS) Group promotes confidential reporting systems as an effective method of enhancing flight safety in commercial air transport and general aviation operations. The principal objectives of the ICASS Group are:
REPCON is a voluntary and confidential reporting scheme. REPCON allows any person who has an aviation safety concern to report it to the ATSB confidentially. Protection of the reporter's identity and any individual referred to in the report is a primary element of the scheme.
Anyone can report a safety concern confidentially to the ATSB. This means members of the travelling public or people involved in aviation.
Some examples of who has made a REPCON report in the past include:
