European Co-ordination Centre for Accident and Incident Reporting Systems (ECCAIRS)
European Co-ordination Centre for Accident and Incident Reporting Systems (ECCAIRS)
Definition
The European Co-ordination Centre for Accident and Incident Reporting Systems (ECCAIRS) is a cooperative network of civil aviation authorities and safety investigation authorities in Europe. The project is being managed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (DG JRC) on request of the Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) and in close co-operation with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
Description
The ECCAIRS mission is to aid national and European transport entities in the collection, sharing and analysis of safety information in order to improve public transport safety.
ECCAIRS relies on a specially designed software suite, called the ECCAIRS Reporting System, that allows European Union member states to collect data in the same manner and to share the information. Beginning with a suite that was first released in 1998, the system originally focused on collecting, sharing and analyzing safety information related to aviation. Since then, the system has been updated, including a 2011 enhancement – the fifth generation or ECCAIRS 5 -- that has also been used in gathering safety information from railway and maritime operations.
EU member state safety information is held in two central databases: the European Central Repositories for Occurrences (ECR-ECCAIRS) and the European Central Repository for Safety Recommendations (ECR-SRIS), both located in the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
ICAO ADREP
Shortly after the first version of the software suite was released, work began on extending that version to support new International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards. ECCAIRS was based on ICAO ADREP (Accident/Incident Data Reporting) system taxonomy, which is a set of definitions and descriptions used during the gathering and reporting of accident/incident data to ICAO. In 2003, the ICAO ADREP database was converted to ECCAIRS 4. ICAO and other organisations offer training in how to use ECCAIRS.
Usage
Using ECCAIRS 5 is a subject to license agreement. Any organization can use ECCAIRS if its goal is to contribute to the improvement of safety by reporting occurrence reports to competent authorities.