The ICAO EUR/NAT Regional Office carried out four specific No Country Left Behind (NCLB) related projects aimed at improving safety of civil aviation in the Region.
The first event, jointly organized by ICAO, IATA, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation, was a Runway Safety Go Team visit to Kyrgyzstan in August 2017. The objective of this collaborative event (ICAO EUR/NAT NCLB Project 16003), was to help Kyrgyzstan improve their runway safety records and assist them in establishing and implementing a runway safety programme and runway safety teams.Runway safety is one of the priority areas as identified by the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP). A training workshop and practical exercises were carried out and resulted in a number of recommendations for further implementation. The event was attended by representatives of the civil aviation administration, air navigation service provider, aerodromes and aircraft operators.
The second event in August 2017 was a joint workshop organised by ICAO and Austria (Ministry of Transport and AustroControl) in the framework of the ICAO EUR/NAT NCLB project 16002 to help several EUR States strengthen their civil aviation safety oversight capabilities in the areas of Procedures for Air Navigation Services — Aircraft Operations (PANSOPS, Doc 8168) and aeronautical charts oversight. The workshop was attended by safety oversight inspectorate personnel from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The participants benefited from experience and best practices shared by their colleagues from Austria and ICAO that will also assist in further implementation of Performance-Based Navigation (PBN), one of ICAO’s Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP) priorities.
Also in August 2017, a special assistance mission to Kyrgyzstan was conducted in order to support their efforts in the resolution of the Significant Safety Concern (SSC) identified within the framework of the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP). In the true spirit of the NCLB campaign, ICAO was supported in this mission by flight operations inspectors from the Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). ICAO and Turkish DGCA experts were able to provide guidance and on-the-job training to the inspectorate staff of the Civil Aviation Agency (CAA) of Kyrgyzstan in the areas of Air Operator’s Certification and issuing special authorizations, specifically for low visibility operations and transportation of dangerous goods by air. The activity was executed within the framework of the ICAO EUR/NAT NCLB project 16004 signed between the ICAO EUR/NAT Office and the Kyrgyzstan CAA.
The fourth event was a workshop for the State safety oversight authorities of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, held in the ICAO EUR/NAT Office in Paris from 10 to 12 October 2017.
The objective of the workshop was to assist the States in enhancing their safety oversight capacity in the areas of Procedures for Air Navigation Services — Aircraft Operations (PANS-OPS, Doc 8168) and aeronautical charts. Austria and Portugal supported the ICAO EUR/ NAT Office in this effort by providing two experts to share their experience and best practices. The workshop will contribute to the improvement of safety records and the level of effective implementation of ICAO provisions by the participating States.
This article was originally written for the ICAO EUR/NAT Office’s Newsletter (Issue 2) on October 2017. A full list of their newsletters can be found here.