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Just Culture, but only for some

It seems there is Just Culture for ATC – e.g. see here, the military (e.g. mentioned here with a really nice diagram) but not for private pilots.

I can’t see an obvious reason behind this.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is. It’s the same legal basis as for all people required to report occurrences.

(EU) No 376/2014
and its list with the mandatory reports (look for Annex V, which applies to non-complex aircraft):
(EU) 2015/1018, here http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1447326836554&uri=CELEX:32015R1018

Reports are to be made via this website: www.aviationreporting.eu

But as mentioned in the other thread, it’s worth considering how a state handles this “just culture”.

At least for Germany I can only recommend not to say a single word or hand over a single document unless you absolutely have to in case of an incident or similar. “Just culture” is a ferry tale.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Peter wrote:

I can’t see an obvious reason behind this.

It’s not one thing, but several aspects. You have civil cases and criminal cases. Then you have the police, the aviation authority and the accident investigation bureau. You also have privacy laws and laws about confidentiality. None of this “just culture” will work unless all of these aspects are taken care of. The military usually have this under control to larger or lesser extent, and the extent is pretty much up to the military itself AFAIK (at least in any “normal” country).

It is rather complex, and I don’t know/understand half of it. But what I do know is that in Norway we have a law that explicitly forbid a criminal case being made against the person who hand over information to the AA/investigation bureau. Its independent of any EU/EASA regulations. We also have a law that explicitly forbid a civil case being made against that person, also independent of EU/EASA, but in this case the state is exempted under article 16, point 10 (a) and (b) in EU reg 376/214; This entire reg is definitely worth reading btw. It’s specifically about this stuff.

(a) in cases of wilful misconduct;
(b) where there has been a manifest, severe and serious disregard of an obvious risk and profound failure of professional
responsibility to take such care as is evidently required in the circumstances, causing foreseeable damage to a person
or property, or which seriously compromises the level of aviation safety.

So when reporting in Norway, you don’t risk anything. The state could theoretically make a civil case against you, but I have no idea why it would do that or what this case would consist of?

But, then we have the police. The police must by law investigate all accidents leading to injury. Whatever you say to the police, can be used against you. However, when there is no injury (no actual accident of any kind), there is nothing for the police to do. The police would never start investigating an airspace bust for instance – unless it lead to an actual accident. Nevertheless, talking to the police after an accident and talking to the the accident investigators/AA are two different things. You can talk freely to the investigators without risk, but when talking to the police you probably should have a lawyer. This is definitely something to be aware of.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Seems to me there is a fundamental distinction.

In the military and in ATC you are inside an organisation that has quite a lot of power to decide how things will work, implement it, and ensure everyone’s cooperation.

Private pilots are not part of any such formal structure. We hold a licence, but we’re just private citizens having no formal relationship with any organisation that might try to implement any sort of culture.

EGLM & EGTN

I am not sure I understand the logic behind why you should need to be inside some organisation to get a Just Culture treatment.

As pilots, we are tightly licensed and authorised by the national CAA, examined by an AME, the planes we fly are examined and maintained by a company which is tightly licensed and authorised by the national CAA, etc. The only difference is that we don’t turn up “for work” for 9am to 5pm or whatever.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Sebastian_G wrote:

At least for Germany I can only recommend not to say a single word or hand over a single document unless you absolutely have to in case of an incident or similar. “Just culture” is a ferry tale.

The same goes for Switzerland, there is a thread about this.

I wonder what leads you to this statement over Germany however.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

I wonder what leads you to this statement over Germany however.

A local pilot had an accident. Nobody was injured but there was much damaged. He admitted quite openly he did a mistake with the flight planning and basically got into conditions beyond his capabilities. The aircraft owner sent the insurance after him and apparently multiple investigations (criminal, CAA etc.) started. There is no point into admitting anything. Let them build the case against you and only then decide if it is wise to say anything.

When I was introduced to aviation my club had a strict written rule that after an accident any talk to anybody on the scene of the accident was formally forbidden. And when our planes had technical issues flights got always cancelled “for weather” because the club feared if we said technical problem to any of the staff at the big airport they would ground the plane until much paperwork was provided. Worst in a situation where the technical problem was only assumed by a pilot…

The only occasion where open communication might work if there is a good chance this will not get whatever did happen onto paper at all. But once a case is opened or the incident is major enough a case is opened anyway don’t say a word.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Sebastian is right. I my early life I studied law and most criminals are not convicted based on CSI investigations but due to their own confessions or statements.

In an accident where you could be even slightly responsible say nothing. It is really sad but is almost always the right course of action.

EGTK Oxford

I guess I’m just suggesting that private pilots can (and will) just say “whatever” to any attempts to implement a culture in a way that perhaps the military or ATC would not be able to.

My experience is that any organisation that starts making a lot of noise about what it considers its culture to be usually has a problem in that it actually has some quite undesirable culture.

An organisational culture is made by the people and what motivates them, not by some words repeated on slide decks ad nauseam. My employer (who shall remain nameless) is always banging on about having a great culture with lots of desirable traits. The reality is that working here is just a load back-biting, responsibility-dodging crap where the incompetent get promoted because they say the right things and actually doing a good job counts for very little.

Or organisational culture is what is actually happening, not what senior management would like it to be.

For an example of ‘Just Culture’, see a certain UK forum where there is a screenshot from Gatwick Tower’s radar display on Twitter with a NATS employee calling an infringer a ‘naughtyboi’. Presumably that infringement is yet to be dealt with through the system, and quite what an ATCO is doing pointing their phone at the radar display when they should be controlling is beyond me.

EGLM & EGTN
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