If someone has been exposed to a serious or immediate risk to their health and safety because of an unplanned or uncontrolled work incident while an aircraft was in operation, you MUST notify us as soon as possible.
We need to investigate or follow up on the events that caused the incident, or have the potential to cause an incident while an aircraft is in operation.
A notifiable incident is where someone’s health or safety is seriously endangered or threatened while an aircraft is in operation.
Specifically, it’s an unplanned or uncontrolled incident that exposes the health and safety of workers or others to a serious risk arising from immediate or imminent exposure to any of the following:
Notifiable incidents do NOT include controlled activities that form part of the business or undertaking.
People may be put at serious risk even if they were some distance from the incident (eg from a gas leak or spray drift).
A notifiable incident also covers the incidents specified above which may have only resulted in minor (non-notifiable) injuries but had the potential to cause serious injury, illness or death while an aircraft was in operation.
The person who manages or controls the workplace must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the site of the notifiable incident is preserved and not disturbed until a CAA Investigator authorises you to do so.
The site may only be disturbed if:
To ensure the site is not disturbed:
If a serious workplace incident occurs, then:
If there are multiple businesses involved with the work, then one of the businesses should be nominated to notify the CAA.
Note that all businesses involved with the work are responsible for making sure that the notification is made by the nominated business.
You must keep records of all notifiable events for at least five years from the date of the event.
You must notify us using the fastest means available to you.
Provide us with as much detail as possible about what has happened. You will receive an acknowledgement that the notification has been received.
Once we have received your notification, it will be reviewed by our response team. They will contact you about the next steps. There are a number of options available, including conducting an investigation or inviting the duty-holder to participate in an assisted review of your health and safety system.
If no action is required, we will confirm this with you.
While there is no requirement under HSWA for you to conduct your own investigation of a notifiable event, investigations can form part of good practice to identify and manage work risk.
After a notifiable event occurs, you should consider:
