Description

The United Kingdom Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP) is intended to improve the safety of the travelling public and that of individuals employed within or associated with aviation operations.

Main principles

The underlining principles of the Programme are:

• CHIRP is a supplementary reporting channel.
• Reports are treated with confidence and the reporter's identity is protected.
• CHIRP does not replace any safety management systems.
• CHIRP is not to be used for events that require mandatory reports.

Reporting procedures

Events that are supposed to be reported:

• Safety and security-related incidents or occurrences that involve:
  • the reporter;
  • the reporter's organization;
  • other people or organizations with whom the reporter interacts.
• Incidents/events that have the potential to increase risk such as:
  • Mistakes and misjudgements made by the reporter;
  • Non-compliance with, or mis-application of specified procedures and regulations;
  • Impractical or inadequate regulations, rules or instructions;
  • Unsafe practices or design features.

Events that are not supposed to be reported:

• Incidents or events that have no air safety or security content;
• Industrial relations and/or terms and conditions of employment;
• Incidents, occurrences and accidents for which a mandatory report must be submitted.

Situations when a CHIRP report might be necessary:

• When the reporter is concerned and wishes to protect their identity;
• When the reporter wishes others to benefit from a valuable ‘Lesson learned’;
• When other reporting procedures are not appropriate or are not available;
• When the reporter has exhausted company or regulatory reporting procedures without the issue having been addressed.

Report Processing

CHIRP expects to receive what may be described as ‘near miss’ incident and hazard reports that have not progressed to the stage at which they become ‘reportable occurrences and accidents’. After reports have been disidentified, CHIRP is expected to:

• Determine, with guidance from advisory boards that comprise practitioners experienced in the relevant disciplines, what the core issues are and who needs to be informed so that they can take corrective action;
• Obtain reporters’ agreements to use their disidentified reports to compile and publish periodical newsletters so that a wider audience may read and learn from reporters’ experiences and lessons identified;
• Analyse and compare reports to identify common factors and emerging trends for communication to those who are responsible for specifying procedures, training requirements, design requirements or exercising safety or security oversight.

Related Articles

• National Confidential Reporting Schemes
• International Confidential Aviation Safety Systems (ICASS) Group
• Safety Occurrence Reporting
• Mandatory Occurrence Reporting
• Voluntary Occurrence Reporting

Further Reading

• CHIRP Homepage
• UK CAA AIC P 026/2016, describing the Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP)