S.L. 499.9 Art. 81Mandatory reporting.

(1) Subject to the provisions of this article and in accordance with the provisions of Directive 2003/42/EC of 13 June 2003 on occurrence reporting in civil aviation, every person who -

(a) is the operator or commander of a turbine-powered aircraft registered in Malta or a public transport aircraft used by the holder of an Air Operator’s Certificate issued by the Director General; or

(b) carries out in Malta the business of designing, manufacturing or modifying a turbine-powered or a public transport aircraft, or any equipment or part thereof; or

(c) signs a certificate of maintenance review, or of release to service in respect of the aircraft indicated in paragraph (a); or any equipment or part thereof; or

(d) performs a function which requires him to be authorised by the Director General as an air traffic controller or as a flight information officer; or

(e) is a manager of an airport covered by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2408/92 of 23 July 1992 on access for Community air carriers to intra-Community air routes; or

(f) performs a function connected with the installation, modification, maintenance, repair, overhaul, flight-checking or inspection of air navigation facilities which are approved for use by the Director General; or

(g) performs a function connected with the ground-handling of aircraft, including fuelling, servicing, loadsheet preparation, loading, de-icing and towing at an airport covered by Regulation (EEC) No 2408/92;

shall:

(i) make a report to the Director General of any occurrence of which he knows and which is of such a description as specified in regulation 4 of the Fourteenth Schedule. The report shall be made within such time, by such means, and shall contain such information as is so specified and it shall be presented in such form as the Director General may in any particular case approve, and

(ii) make a report to the Director General, within such time, by such means, and containing such information as the Director General may specify in a notice in writing served upon him, being information which is in his possession or control and which relates to a reportable occurrence which has been reported by him or by another person to the Director General in accordance with this article.

(2) In this article:

(a) "occurrence" means an operational interruption, defect, fault or other irregular circumstance that has or may have influenced flight safety and that has not resulted in an accident or serious incident, hereinafter referred to as "accident or serious incident", as defined in Article 3(a) and (k) of Directive 94/56/EC of 21 November 2004 establishing the fundamental principles governing the investigation of civil aviation accidents and incidents; and

(b) "disidentification" means removing from reports submitted all personal details pertaining to the reporter and technical details which might lead to the identity of the reporter, or of third parties, being inferred from the information.

(3) Subject to subarticle (1)(g)(ii), nothing in this article shall require a person to report any occurrence which he has reason to believe has been or will be reported by another person to the Director General in accordance with this article.

(4) A person shall not make any report under this article if he has reason to believe that the report is false.

(5) Without prejudice to article 36(2) and subject to the provisions of article 59, the operator of an aircraft shall, if he has reason to believe that a report has been or will be made in pursuance of this article, preserve any data from a flight data recorder relevant to the reportable occurrence for fourteen days from the date on which a report of that occurrence is made to the Director General or for such longer periods as the Director General may in a particular case direct: Provided that the record may be erased if the aircraft is outside Malta and it is not reasonably practicable to preserve the record until the aircraft reaches Malta.

(6) (a) For the purposes of Article 5(1) of Directive 2003/42/ EC the Director General is the designated authority to put in place a mechanism to collect, evaluate, process and store occurrences reported in accordance with subarticle (1).

(b) Reports shall be stored by the Director General in a database, which shall also include reports of accidents and serious incidents. This database shall be compatible with specific software developed for the purpose by the Commission of the European Union. Names or addresses shall never be recorded in this database.

(c) All safety-related information relating to incidents stored in this database shall be made available to the competent authorities of the other Member States and of the Commission of the European Union. The Director General shall notify, whenever necessary, the reports mentioned in paragraph (b) to the competent authority of the State where the aircraft is registered, where the aircraft is manufactured and, or where the operator is certified.

(7) Any entity entrusted with regulating civil aviation safety or with investigating civil aviation accidents and incidents within the European Community shall have access to information on occurrences collected and exchanged in accordance with Article 6 of Directive 2003/42/EC to enable it to draw the safety lessons from the reported occurrences.

(8) The Director General may publish at least annually a safety review containing information on the types of occurrences collected under the mandatory occurrence-reporting system to inform the public of the level of safety in civil aviation. The Director General may also publish disidentified reports.

(9) The Director General shall take necessary measures as may be required by law to ensure confidentiality of the information received under Article 6 of Directive 2003/42/EC from other States and shall use the information solely for the objective of the same Directive.

(10) Without prejudice to the applicable rules of criminal law and to rules related to access to information by judicial authorities, there shall be no proceedings in respect of unpremeditated or inadvertent infringements of the law which come to the attention of the Director General only because they have been reported under the mandatory occurrence-reporting scheme, except in cases of gross negligence. Employees who report incidents of which they may have knowledge shall not be subjected to any prejudice by their employer.