By Chinelo Obogo
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has deployed national aviation safety reporting system for both mandatory and voluntary reports.
The deployment was announced in All Operators Letter (AOL) referenced NCAA/DG/AIR/11/16/341 dated August 25, 2023 and addressed to all aviation stakeholders and the general public. It was signed by the Director General of the agency, Capt. Musa Nuhu.
It is coming on the back of NCAA establishing a robust Safety Data Collection and Reporting System (SDCPS) called SMS Pro, that would bring Nigeria to full compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs).
The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) receives, processes and analyses voluntarily submitted incident reports from pilots, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, maintenance technicians crew and others who are expected to report occurrences in the course of their duties.
The Safety Reporting System is for implementation of the SSP/SMS, which is different from faults reported on tech logs. There are certain occurrences that must be reported under the Mandatory Reporting System (MRS) like tyre burst, breach of separation, bird strike, failure of engines before overhaul period, etc.
Mandatory Occurrence Report (MOR) forms are used to report to NCAA and organisations implementing SMS have the voluntary reporting systems. Some airlines have boxes around, emails or portals that can be used to send anonymous reports
It’s the MOR and the voluntary reports that will be reported under the new reporting system.
Annex 19 to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and the Civil Aviation Act 2022 mandate the implementation of Aviation State Safety Programme, hence, it is required that:
“All Service Providers Certificated by the NCAA provide details (email and phone numbers) of their respective focal points for submission of mandatory reports to the Authority. The focal points are expected to attend an orientation on the modalities and zoom invite will be provided for this orientation.
“As soon as access to the reporting system is granted, all service providers are required start using the system immediately. Though mandatory reports in paper may be still be accepted, submission of mandatory reports through the system is mandatory as from 1st September, 2023;
“Focal persons are mandated to immediately create awareness across their respective organisations and provide documented evidence that awareness campaign has been done to the Authority not later than 1st October, 2023. Such evidence shall be submitted through the safety reporting handle.
” As soon as customised handles for submission of mandatory reports is provided, the focal persons are authorised to share the link with other key personnel within their various organisations to enable them submit reports which will be automatically classified under the applicable service provider in the reporting system.
“It is pertinent to note that both the NCAA and the NSIB have access to all submitted reports and are enabled to receive prompt email alerts as soon as any report is submitted into the system, including direct reports by the enabled public. And upon receipt of safety reports, both will do a preliminary risk assessment of each report to decide on which of the two agencies will handle the report,” the AOL stated.