The Aviation Safety Reporting System, or ASRS, is the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) voluntary confidential reporting system that allows pilots, air traffic controllers, cabin crew, dispatchers, maintenance technicians, ground operations, and UAS operators and drone flyers to confidentially report near misses or close call events in the interest of improving aviation safety. The ASRS collects, analyzes, and responds to voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident reports in order to reduce the likelihood of aviation accidents. The ASRS was designed and is operated by NASA, who is seen as a neutral third-party due to its lack of enforcement authority and relations with airlines. The confidential and independent nature of the ASRS is key to its long-term success in identifying numerous latent system hazards in the National Airspace System (NAS). The FAA extends limited immunity to individual aviation workers for reporting safety events which do not result in an accident, as defined by the FAA. This has the effect of encouraging these potential reporters to come forward with systemic safety issues without fear of reprisal. The success of the system stands as a positive example used as a model by other industries seeking to make improvements in safety. Other industries who have modeled similar systems on the ASRS include the rail, medical, firefighters, and off-shore petroleum production.
Reporting process
A notable feature of the ASRS is its confidentiality and immunity policy. Reporters may, but are not required to, submit their name and contact information. If the ASRS staff has questions regarding a report, it can perform a callback and request further information or clarification from the reporter. Once the staff is satisfied with the information received, the report is stripped of identifying information and assigned a report number. The part of the reporting form with contact information is detached and returned to the reporter. ASRS will issue alerts to relevant parties, such as airlines, air traffic controllers, manufacturers, and airport authorities if NASA considers the issue to be significant to improved aviation safety. The ASRS also publishes a monthly newsletter highlighting safety issues, and now has an online database of reports that is accessible by the public. This database makes a large body of de-identified reports available to safety researchers world-wide. In addition, the ASRS occasionally conducts special studies on topics of interest to researchers and regulators. These special studies are also made available on the ASRS website.
Immunity policy
The first government official to advocate the use of an immunity policy was Bobbie R. Allen, Director of the Civil Aeronautics Board. In 1966 - twelve years before ASRS was launched, Bobbie R. Allen, Director of the Bureau of Aviation Safety, was advocating the use of computers and the concept of non-punitive incident reporting.
In a Nov 1966 speech at a Flight Safety Foundation seminar in Madrid, Allen stated: