A really amazing example of fuel planning (and French FFA / REX site)

You have Chirp in the UK if you have done something wrong and recognize it (as I did once) but one has to be always careful on any diclosure that comes back specifically on you rather than the general safety…

The mistake this pilot did, we did it all after PPL departing with “less than ideal fuel”, luckily the calculations tends to be conservative !

Actually, I think this is a great way to learn from other pilots — even if some reports raise eyebrows. After all, everyone has at some point made a bad decision. Maybe if one reads enough accident and occurrence reports it becomes easier to recognize own hazardous attitudes.
I wonder if it there is any connection with the official reporting system of the EU, but I don’t see any reference on FFA/REX to (EU) 376/2014 or www.aviationreporting.eu (there is also a list in annex V stating which occurrences are mandatory to report). However, the EU reports are not made public.
Switzerland also had a reporting system (SWANS) but it had to be replaced by the official system of the EU.

The implementation of this law proofs quite difficult. It says that the pilot should be protected from prejudice and prosecution (quotes from the preamble):

(39) Without prejudice to national criminal law and the proper administration of justice, it is important to clearly
demarcate the extent of the protection of the reporter and other persons mentioned in occurrence reports from
prejudice or prosecution.

(43) Individuals may be discouraged from reporting occurrences by the fear of self-incrimination and the potential
consequences in terms of prosecution before judicial authorities. The objectives of this Regulation can be achieved
without interfering unduly with the justice systems of the Member States. It is therefore appropriate to provide
that unpremeditated or inadvertent infringements of the law that come to the attention of the authorities of the
Members States solely through reporting pursuant to this Regulation should not be the subject of disciplinary,
administrative or legal proceedings, unless where otherwise provided by applicable national criminal law.
However, the rights of third parties to institute civil proceedings should not be covered by this prohibition and
should be subject only to national law.

In other words, based on occurrence reports of www.aviationreporting.eu, there should be no consequences for the pilot. Except if there was a criminal aspect to the occurrence.

Personally, I generally support the idea of this non-punitive reporting system. But I also think that the gathered data must be used wisely for GA safety campaigns etc., otherwise it’s worthless. That this FFA occurrences are made public is interesting. I think it would be of higher value if the data was systematically analyzed (maybe it is).

I hope that’s still on topic. I kind of wanted to mention that there is a EU-wide reporting website and give some perspective on it.

The reporting is voluntary and possibly the majority do not concern any regulatory infringements, they are often something like “I did something and learnt this from it”. Sometimes a comment might be added by one of the FFA’s aviation safety advisers to back up what might have been a reason for the occurence happening and how it might be avoided in the future. A bit like this forum.
The reports are anonymous but I suppose it would be possible to track down the person or persons involved. But if you take the case of low fuel, yes the amount of fuel left in the tank was less than regulations require, but IMO the DGAC take the common sense approach that a write up like this does more to improve GA safety than would be done by taking punitive action.
There was an interesting one published some months back when a pilot inadvertently entered Orly airspace. He realised what he had done and exited the airspace as fast as he could. Once back on the ground he telephoned Orly Tower, to apologise for what he had done. They told him that they had noticed the infringement and had had to reroute several passenger airliners. A discussion took place about how he might avoid similar problems in the future but ended by thanking him for ringing and saving their time in tracking him down.No further action was taken. In the report published on REX a comment from the safety adviser was added to say admitting what you have done wrong means you have probably learnt something and is unlikely to lead to prosecution.
I have learnt since my first post that it is not just the FFA members who are encouraged to publish in REX but the FFPLUM ( the national ULM association) members are also encouraged to do so. Both the FFA and FFPULM have regular meetings with the DGAC out which the REX was born so whilst I have not seen any written agreements I assume (as do many others) that self incrimination of this sort does not lead to further action.

ArcticChiller wrote:

In other words, based on occurrence reports of www.aviationreporting.eu, there should be no consequences for the pilot. Except if there was a criminal aspect to the occurrence.

Well, …

1. Civil aspects are explicitly not covered; meaning people can use these reports to extract money from you. That may be part of why these reports are not made public.
2. The “except as provided by criminal law” and “Without prejudice to national criminal law” are loopholes to fly an A380 through. Doesn’t the criminal law of about each country say you can be prosecuted for contravening the regulations, and the fine / other penalty is such and such?
3. Last but not least, the preamble has no normative / legislative effect. It states the legislator’s intentions, and can serve as a guide to interpretation of the actual legislative content. If there is no immunity in the actual articles, there is no immunity, whatever the preamble says!

Luckily, the normative content does contain some actual immunity, in article 16, paragraphs 6 to 10. But I see it as quite limited.

6. without prejudice to applicable national criminal law, Member States shall refrain from instituting proceedings in respect of unpremeditated or inadvertent infringements of the law which come to their attention only because they have been reported pursuant to Articles 4 and 5.

Meaning if ATC makes a report, they have another source and immunity doesn’t apply. If radar tracks show you busted a zone, they have another source. Isn’t that much weaker than the NASA reports in FAA land? Again “Without prejudice to applicable national criminal law”, so as soon as the law says “infringement of air law shall be punishable by this and this”, this doesn’t apply.

7. If disciplinary or administrative proceedings are instituted under national law, information contained in occurrence reports shall not be used (…)

So, yeah, the CAA can’t use the information to suspend / remove your licence. The public prosecutor can.

I think the people that wrote this regulation are very well aware of these very significant limitations; that’s why they don’t rely on the legal immunity provided, but try to organise the database so that, as far as possible, it cannot be used by the criminal justice system and third parties: paragraphs 1 to 4 organise that neither EASA nor the national databases contain “personal details”. If they don’t have the information, it cannot be obtained from them, and cannot be used!