Confidential Event Reporting System
After an accident or a serious incident, the BEA (Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile) undertakes a technical investigation aiming to prevent future accidents. Like investigations lead by other countries on various catastrophes, the experience of the BEA accumulated since 1945 shows that an accident or a serious incident is seldom explained by a single cause, but generally stems from multiple causal factors which, if taken separately, would not have necessarily lead to such serious consequences. Preventing these causes before their combination leads to an accident or serious incident could enhance aviation safety.
This is why the BEA decided to create a unit called the REC (Recueil d'Evénements Confidentiel - Confidential Event Reporting System), in charge of collecting confidential events. Its current framework deals with all activities related to General Aviation (training, aerial work, helicopters, ultra lights, gliders etc).
The mission of the REC unit consists of collecting reports of minor incidents or the relation of events that occurs separately, and formalizing them in order to facilitate their exploitation by the aviation community on a large scale. This entity works thanks to the voluntary input of aviation users who concur to enhance safety. They have the possibility to report on an event which is not subject to a mandatory procedure but which is likely to procure useful information on the prevention of accidents.
The author of such a report is granted the following guaranties :
This system of collecting events is fully operational since January 2001.
| REC info 1/2004 | PDF |
| REC info 5/2007 | PDF |
(1) As stated in Article L 722.2 of the Civil Aviation Code, any person involved in an incident, which spontaneously and with no delay reports it to the BEA, is protected from any disciplinary or administrative sanction, except in case of deliberate or repeated offenses to safety rules. This Article appears in Book 7 of the Civil Aviation Code in accordance with the Law n° 99-243 of 29 March 1999, which follows the European Directive 94/56/CE and sets up the new regime for technical aircraft accident investigation.
Le REC (in French)
BEA (English home page)