S’pore among 5 Asean nations to share key aviation safety data
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The initiative will cover incidents such as severe turbulence and bird strikes.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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SINGAPORE – The aviation authorities in five Asean countries, including Singapore, have inked a deal to share critical safety data on a variety of aviation incidents such as severe turbulence and bird strikes in their airspace, airports or involving their national airlines.
This comes after several high-profile airline accidents rocked the aviation sector in 2024, heightening consumer concerns over the safety of air travel.
Among these were a fiery runway collision in Japan blowout of a door plug on a Boeing plane a Singapore Airlines flight meeting severe turbulence
In a joint statement on Oct 17, the civil aviation authorities of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand said the new regional safety data-sharing initiative will enable them to better identify safety hazards and trends, and develop mitigating measures to manage risks.
The parties will work towards launching this first-of-its-kind initiative by the end of 2024.
The move, which was mooted during a summit held in Singapore in 2023, aims to boost aviation safety as air travel makes a full recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities said.
Under the agreement, which was signed on Oct 16, the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand will be responsible for collecting, managing and storing the shared data, while the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) will be in charge of analysing the aggregated data.
In response to queries from The Straits Times, CAAS said every state receives reports about aviation safety incidents from the entities they regulate, such as airlines and air navigation service providers.
However, they are not obliged to share these reports with other states unless these involve accidents or serious incidents.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, an aviation accident is when someone dies or gets seriously injured, an aircraft is damaged or has a structural failure, or if the aircraft is missing or inaccessible.
A serious incident, on the other hand, refers to situations where there is a high chance that an accident could happen.
With the new regional initiative, the five national civil aviation authorities will share information on seven types of aviation incidents as a start.
These include severe turbulence, dangerous goods, bird strikes and the activation of ground proximity warning systems, which alert pilots if their aircraft is in immediate danger of flying into the ground or an obstacle.
“By pooling such information that is not currently shared, this initiative will help with the identification of risk areas, if any, in this region,” CAAS added.
The type of data that will be shared may be revised if all the parties agree.
The three-year agreement will be automatically renewed for additional three-year terms unless all parties decide to discontinue.
The five civil aviation authorities will adopt a set of shared principles and data privacy guidelines, including the consensus that any shared data should be used only to enhance safety, and not for other purposes such as in investigations or enforcement action.
The data shared will thus be “de-identified”, which CAAS said means no direct identifiers of the service providers, specific flights or operational personnel involved in any of the reported incidents will be shared.
CAAS director-general Han Kok Juan said the hope is to get more countries on board the new data-sharing scheme, to ensure safer skies for travellers.
Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia chief executive Norazman Mahmud said: “Together, we are laying the foundation for a resilient, safe... aviation sector across the Asia-Pacific region.”
