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Engineering CHIRP~A progress report
Technical Paper
1998-11-0038
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
The original confidential reporting scheme was set up in the UK
in 1982 following the creation in the US of the Aviation Safety
Reporting System (ASRS). This, in turn, was instituted following
the investigation into the Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) at
Washington Dulles airport in 1976 of an aircraft due to a
misreading of a chart; the subsequent investigation revealed that
the self-same mistake had been made by another aircraft, in clear
weather, some six weeks earlier and the crew were able to take
corrective action. They duly reported the incident both internally
and to the FAA, however, the information was not passed on to other
operators. The scheme in the US is run by NASA and the UK scheme
differs in some respects from that of the US. In particular, the US
scheme covers Mandatory Occurrence Reporting aspects, for which we
in the UK have a separate scheme.
At first, the UK scheme was available to pilots only and was
managed by the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine, which, with its
professionalism and perceived independence, resulted in its wide
acceptance. In 1984 the scheme was made available to Air Traffic
Controllers.
A Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators review was undertaken in
1994 as it was felt that the performance of CHIRP needed
reassessment against its original objectives. This led to the
relaunching of CHIRP under a new management structure and the
recommendations that it should be extended, in time, to other
groups in the industry and should participate in initiatives
related to the development of international Confidential Reporting
schemes.
In July 1997 the program was extended to cover Licensed and
other Engineers and Approved Maintenance organizations.