FC5406 - Reporting system not fit for purpose
Initial Report
On several occasions now I have submitted an Air Safety Report (ASR) through my airline’s dedicated App on my company iPad. The App has a known bug to completely lose the report and not submit it. This bug has been there for years and therefore when you contact the safety team, they provide a detailed IT ‘workaround’ which is copy and pasted, however that requires the report to be started from scratch. A recent report of mine containing detailed technical information was lost and I cannot rewrite it from memory, at home. This report has been lost forever. This is not the first time it has happened to me. The App is not fit for purpose and there is no action to rectify the issue. I am also concerned that mandatory occurrence reports that may be required to submit to the regulator may be lost as the integrity of the system is questionable. Furthermore, upon later checking successfully submitted reports, I noted that they Appear closed despite me not receiving any feedback, even basic feedback indicating that they would not be investigated and confirming they are closed. When I contact the safety team, I receive a response indicating my email would be forwarded to the Investigator but without disclosing who they are, and I don’t receive anything further. My confidence in the entire system has been lost.
comments
Airline Comment
I am sorry to hear that your reporter has had issues with the App, we have a very healthy reporting culture and receive positive feedback, and this has been enhanced as now all of our crew have an iPad with the App installed (this was previously only available to pilots and senior crew members).
Our people across the organisation are able to report safety issues into our system via the desktop / web browser version, or in addition our crew can use the App which is installed on their company issued iPads. The App can be used for reporting both online and offline (when reports are then submitted once the iPad is once again online).
As with all systems, on occasion IT issues can be experienced, these are few and far between, however in this case we request that they are reported via our IT support platform or to the team who manage the system. With regard to the reporter not receiving feedback following submission of safety reports, feedback is sent by the system automatically or by an investigator (depending upon the type of incident reported) for every report submitted and so I would be very keen to understand where the reporter has not seen this. Maintaining confidence in our reporting system is essential.
CHIRP Comment
The airline concerned, as well as providing the response to CHIRP given above, also offered to speak with the reporter directly, but they declined to take up the offer. One way to ensure important safety information is kept available for future reference, in case an App has periods of poor functionality such as in this report, is to consider initially writing the report in Word or Email and keep a copy, as well as using App. This does, however, put more onus on the reporter to make up for short falls in App reliability and it is the airline’s responsibility to ensure flight crews and other employees are able to easily and confidently submit internal safety reports.