RNZ Insight - ICAO audit of NZ aviation accident investigation system

24 Mar 2016

A Morning Report item today previewing a RNZ Insight programme used 10 year old data when claiming that NZ's aviation accident investigation system was currently ranked 74th in the world.

TAIC had supplied RNZ with the following information:

"The audit score of 68.75 in 2006 was New Zealand’s audit rating for the entire accident and incident investigation system, which includes everything from legislation requiring notification of accidents and incidents through to the various Acts and Civil Aviation Rules that incorporate the ICAO standards into New Zealand domestic law. To put this in context, CAA receives between 6000 and 7000 air safety occurrence notifications a year covering a broad range while TAIC has around 10 air investigations underway at any one time. All are covered by the audit process. ICAO audits began in 2005. New Zealand was one of the first countries that volunteered to have its systems audited. It took until 2010 for ICAO to complete its audits of the remaining 190 countries. Over that period countries were able to adapt and better match the audit requirements. In effect, the base line on which New Zealand was audited changed making the 74th figure, as it appears now, meaningless. ICAO has also been transitioning to a continuous monitoring system of measuring compliance with the ICAO standards, which means the audit takes on a different approach. Most of the compliance checking is done through the new system of updating electronic records held by ICAO. It would be an error and statistically incorrect to say New Zealand only sits at 74 out of 191 countries as far as compliance with ICAO AIG standards goes. Our next audit is in December this year."