4.6What are the competent authority obligations in terms of oversight?

4.6 What are the competent authority obligations in terms of oversight? Article 13(8) of Regulation 376/2014 establishes that the competent authority shall have access to the analysis made and actions taken by organisations it is responsible for. This is notably ensured by the obligation for organisations to transfer certain information to their competent authority (Article 13(4) and (5)) and to the possibility for their competent authority to request other information to be transmitted to it.

It is understood that, to perform this responsibility, the competent authority needs to establish a process to assess the information reported. This process should notably allow the competent authority to require additional appropriate action to be taken and implemented by the organisation in situation where it has assessed that the action was inappropriate to address actual or potential safety deficiencies (Article 13(8)). It should also enable reviewing and validating the risk classification of the occurrence. In situations where the monitoring is done over organisations which are outside oversight responsibilities of the competent authority (ground handling organisations, small aerodromes) it is understood that the monitoring obligations do not require creating comprehensive oversight mechanisms such as inspections. It is however expected to allow analysing information transmitted with the view to monitor the appropriateness of actions adopted.

In such situation, those occurrences should be reviewed if the organisation provides a follow-up or if additional information gathered by the competent authority questions the initial assessment made (i.e. by the reception of another report on the same occurrence from a different source).