Abstract:
This is a critique of ESARR4 and its main supporting documents. ESARR4 is the
Eurocontrol Safety Regulatory Requirement Number 4 (Eurocontrol SRC, 2001):
‘Risk Assessment and Mitigation in ATM’, ATM standing for Air Traffic Management.
It is demonstrated that ESARR4 and its supporting documents are defective. There
is a lack of clarity about responsibilities for ATM safety. The claims ESARR4 etc
make for its proposed methodologies are overstated – not supported by sound
evidence from real world hazard analysis. Serious negative effects from this
defective document include mis-allocation of scarce safety resources and the
diversion of attention away from real safety improvements – wasteful of regulators’
and managers’ time. Suggestions are made for repairing these deficiencies. The
most important underlying change would be a refocusing on practical safety
assessment based on methods that have already demonstrated their merits.