Surveillance

How the System is Applied

The CAA adjusts the priority for surveillance of certificate holders in response to the risk profile ranking, information from surveillance activities, and from other sources, such as safety investigation and safety analysis of accidents, incidents and defects. The CAA response to indications of poor or declining performance, and increased risk, may include:

  1. Additional hours spent on each audit module (increased depth or increased sampling).
  2. Use of other surveillance tools, as appropriate, including special purpose audits and inspections, and spot checks.
  3. Additional scheduled audit visits and inspections (increased frequency).

Additional and more targeted surveillance will be effective in cases where voluntary compliance is still considered to be the main compliance tool.

Some information will require an urgent response in the public interest, such as when the risk profiling system generates an alert due to a pre-set threshold being exceeded. Then the relevant manager will determine the cause of the change in risk rating and decide what, if any, CAA intervention is required to mitigate the risk.

Deciding the depth and frequency of inspection and monitoring in each case involves a review of the document holder's current risk profile - both the overall rating, and the ratings for each individual indicator. Previous risk assessment ratings are also reviewed to determine whether any trend exists and if the level of risk is consistent. An adverse trend may indicate a need to take action even if the current rating is not cause for concern in its own right.

Decision Guidelines for CAA Staff

  1. If the total score of the risk profile appears in the 1st (low risk) band, the risk performance has been consistently good for a period of two years, an audit or inspection has been conducted within the past two years, and none of the risk indicator ratings give a cause for concern, then there are reasonable grounds for not conducting an audit or inspection visit.
  2. If the total score of the risk profile appears in the 2nd band, review the risk indicator scores and conduct a routine audit or inspection focusing on areas that have cause risk indicator ratings of 4 or 5.
  3. If the total score of the risk profile appears in the 3rd band, conduct a comprehensive audit or inspection placing particular emphasis on areas with risk indicator ratings of 4 or 5. Consider audit visits more frequently than once per year.
  4. If the total score of the risk profile appears in the 4th (high risk) band, the risk assessment suggests that the operator is a high safety risk relative to the rest of the operator population. It is very important that they are subject to intensive safety oversight activity aimed at reducing the safety risk they pose.
    Examine the makeup of the risk profile to determine the cause(s) of the high-risk rating. Plan intervention to target these.
    The CAA does not accept that a high risk automatically follows from a particular type of operation and that nothing can be done to reduce the risk. Thus, while accident statistics indicate that single-pilot IFR operations carry a higher risk than multi-pilot IFR operations, the single-pilot risk can be reduced by such measures as the installation of TAWS, use of the FSF ALAR toolkit etc.
  5. Operators in the highest risk band should be the subject of frequent, in-depth safety oversight with visits conducted more frequently than once per year.