Safety Reporting

The Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) is a non-profit aviation safety organization that provides programs to enable on-demand charter providers and fractional program managers to achieve the highest levels of safety in the aviation industry. To achieve this goal, the ACSF has entered into an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to enhance safety by providing a systematic approach for employees of on-demand charter operators and fractional program managers to promptly identify and correct potential safety hazards.

The ACSF, in cooperation with your company, its employees and the FAA, has established an Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP). This program is a voluntary, self-reporting program designed to identify and reduce possible flight safety concerns. ASAP uses employee input to identify significant safety concerns and issues; operational deficiencies; non-compliance with regulations; deviations from company policies and procedures; and unusual events. Each report is reviewed and corrective actions determined based on a non-disciplinary approach to flight safety.

ASAP fosters a voluntary, cooperative, non-punitive environment for the open reporting of safety of flight concerns. Through such reporting, all participants have access to valuable safety information that might not otherwise be obtainable. This information is analyzed, and corrective action is developed, to help resolve safety issues and possibly eliminate deviations from the federal aviation regulations (FARs). When a report is accepted under ASAP, the FAA will use lesser enforcement action or no enforcement action, depending on whether it is a sole-source report, to address an event involving possible noncompliance with the FARs.

This ASAP program applies to all covered employees of your company, and only to events that occur while acting in that capacity. A copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between your company, the ACSF, and the FAA can be viewed upon log-in to this website. The appendix to the MOU identifies the covered employees for each participating company.

A report will not be accepted into ASAP when the event involves any of the following: criminal activity, substance abuse, controlled substances, alcohol, or intentional falsification, and must not appear to involve an intentional disregard for safety or reckless conduct.

When you observe a safety problem or experience a safety-related event, you should note the problem or event and describe it in enough detail so that it can be evaluated by a third party.

At an appropriate time during the workday (e.g., after the trip sequence has ended for the day), complete and submit electronically the web-based ASAP Report Form for each safety problem or event. If web-based reporting is not available at the time you need to file a report, contact the ACSF ASAP manager's office and file a report via telephone on the ASAP Hotline (toll-free): 855-FLT-SAFE (358-7233). The telephone report must be within 24 hours after the end of flight sequence (or your assigned shift) for the day of occurrence, absent extraordinary circumstances.

Reports filed via telephone within the prescribed time limit must be followed by a formal report submission within three calendar days thereafter. If the safety event involves a deviation from an ATC clearance, the pilot should note the date, time, place, altitude, flight number, and ATC frequency, along with enough other information to fully describe the event and any perceived safety problem.

ASAP reports are classified as either sole-source or non-sole source. A sole-source report is the only evidence that an event has occurred. Whereas, a non-sole source report is information obtained from a source, other than the ASAP report, to prove that a violation of the FARs has occurred.

Sole-source reports will be accepted into ASAP, regardless of the timeframe within which they are submitted, provided they do not involve any of the exclusionary events mentioned previously.

Non-sole source reports must be filed within one of the following two possible timeframes in order to be considered:

(1) Within 24 hours after the end of the flight sequence for flight crewmembers, or the end of the duty shift for employees other than flight crewmembers, absent extraordinary circumstances. For example, if the event occurred at 1400 hours on Monday and a pilot completes the flight sequence for that day at 1900 hours, the report should be filed no later than 1900 hours Tuesday. Non-flight crew covered employees must submit a report within 24 hours of completion of the duty shift for the day of the occurrence. In order for all employees to be covered under the ASAP for any apparent noncompliance with the FARs resulting from an event, they must all sign the same report or submit separate signed reports for the same event.

(2) Within 24 hours of having become aware of possible non-compliance with the FARs, provided the following criteria are met: If a report is submitted later than the time period after the occurrence of an event stated in paragraph (1) above, all available information will be reviewed to determine whether the pilot knew or should have known about the possible noncompliance with the FARs within that time period. If it is determined that the employee did not know or could not have known about the possible noncompliance with the FARs until informed of it, the report will be included in ASAP, provided the report is submitted within 24 hours of having become aware of the possible noncompliance, and provided that the report otherwise meets the acceptance criteria. If the employee knew or should have known about the possible noncompliance, the report will not be included in ASAP.

Event Review Committee

An event review committee (ERC) reviews and analyzes the reports submitted, identifies actual or potential safety problems from the information in the reports, and proposes solutions for those problems to the participating company. The ERC provides feedback to the individual who submitted the report through the ACSF ASAP manager.

All non-sole source reports accepted into ASAP are closed with ERC corrective action, as appropriate. No FAA Administrative Action will result.

The ACSF ASAP manager maintains a database that continually tracks each event and the analysis of those events. The ACSF participating company database is structured to share needed safety information and still maintain anonymity. The ERC conducts a 12-month review of the participating company's ASAP database with emphasis on determining whether corrective actions have been effective in preventing or reducing the recurrence of safety-related events of a similar nature. That review includes recommendations for corrective action for recurring events indicative of adverse safety trends.

The complete details regarding the ASAP event reporting and review process are outlined in the ACSF ASAP MOU and the ACSF ASAP Handbook, which can be viewed upon log-in to the website.

"WHEN IN DOUBT, FILL IT OUT."