SAFA Skysailor Magazine

38 SKY SAILOR June-July-August | WINTER 2025 AIRS Reports – let’s remove some myths by Iain Clarke – SAFA Safety Management Officer Greetings fellow pilots. Recently, I have been on the road to inspect some of our FTFs as part of our safety assurance commitments. Whilst in the areas, I’ve engaged with local clubs where possible, to talk about all things safety. During one of these meetings, the local execs were stunned at the data I presented on AIRS stats for their sites. “Wow! That’s only about 10% of what we think occurs.” Under-reporting of accidents and incidents is expected and understandable when you have a voluntary reporting system. I don’t think we’re doing too bad though when you compare our stats against the USHPA’s. We have around 3000 members, and in 2024 we had 92 AIRS reports. In comparison for the 2024 flying season, USHPA had 90 reports from 8919 members. It’s worth having a look at some of the reasons why people don’t, or are reluctant to report, and see if we can dispel any existing misconceptions. Firstly, what is AIRS? It’s our Accident and Incident Reporting System. We use this system to learn from what has happened to others and share those learnings with everyone. Is it inconvenient or time-consuming to submit a report? It takes only 10 minutes of your time; more if you submit a really detailed report. I’ve prepared a User Guide to help you navigate the different sections of the AIRS submission screen. You can find it in the ‘Documents’ repository in the member’s area of the SAFA website under ‘User Guides’. You’ve made a mistake – either on launch, in the air or on landing – and had a bingle; hopefully you haven’t hurt yourself. Will you get into trouble because of that? No (although there is a caveat here, more on that later). We all make mistakes; we’ve all been there. SAFA don’t operate a demerit point system. We’re really glad you’re in a position to be able to write a report, tell us about your experience and share it with other pilots, so hopefully they won’t do the same thing.