Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Please post throughout your facility, and utilize the subject and
lessons learned during crew briefings as a method to raise
awareness within the workforce.
May 7, 2010
By submitting your reports, you contribute important safety information that will help the 1
ATO identify negative trends, safety issues, and procedural deficiencies.
ATSAP Briefing Sheet
Question: Can you help me understand who has to report and when?
ANSWER:
The wording in N JO 7210.741 paragraph 9-1-2e is a little confusing, but this is what it
means.
It doesn’t matter what position you are working, ALL eligible employees (those at
facilities in the program) may ALWAYS file an ATSAP in order to report ANY air traffic
safety event or problem, whether experienced or observed.
If you are “self reporting” an event, i.e. you are the one directly involved in the event,
then ATSAP meets your obligation to report to management.
If you are acting in a management role, i.e. as an FLM/CIC and you observe a Sole
Source Event as described in the MOU, then you may STILL file an ATSAP report, and
it STILL meets your obligation to report, but you may also report it through QA, which
we encourage.
• If you are acting in a management role, just like above (here is where it’s different) and
you are informed of an event, it is no longer Sole Source, and you MUST report it via
the QA process. You may still file an ATSAP report, but it no longer satisfies your obli-
gation to report.
ATSAP Positives
Issue: Several ATSAP reports identified a safety issue with wind instruments at an
Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT). The facility had made requests for an upgrade
for over two years. The request’s continued to get replaced by other projects that
were believed to be of a higher priority. There were some changes made to the exist-
ing instruments in an attempt to remedy the issue, but to no avail. At one point, Tech-
nical Operations replaced the hard wire connecting the sensor and the display with a
wireless connection. However, the wind readout did not display the wind and instead, displayed "service error,"
which caused the system to become unreliable.
Potential Hazard: Disruption in situational awareness and operational oversight.
Positive: The Event Review Committee (ERC) issued a Corrective Action Request (CAR) to expedite a fix to the Sur-
face Advisory Weather System (SAWS). The Air Traffic Organization’s (ATO) Terminal Weather Group allocated
the release of a SAWS unit and it's scheduled for installation in the near future.
Event: An En Route controller cleared an aircraft to descend to 2500 feet which s/he believed was the Minimum Safe
Altitude (MSA) for the particular area. The Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) alerted at 2900 feet. The
overhead charts depicted 2500 feet as the MSA. The controller was not aware that the MSA had been raised to 2900
feet a week earlier.
Potential Hazard: Inadequate terrain clearance.
Positive: The ERC communicated the issue and the charts were updated accordingly.
By submitting your reports, you contribute important safety information that will help the 2
ATO identify negative trends, safety issues, and procedural deficiencies.