21.A.3A Reporting system

(a)     Without prejudice to Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council[9] and its delegated and implementing acts, all natural or legal persons that have applied for or hold a type-certificate, restricted type-certificate, supplemental type-certificate, European Technical Standard Order (ETSO) authorisation, major repair design approval or any other relevant approval deemed to have been issued under this Regulation shall:

1.       establish and maintain a system for collecting, investigating and analysing occurrence reports in order to identify adverse trends or to address deficiencies and to extract occurrences whose reporting is mandatory in accordance with point 3 and those which are reported voluntarily. When the principal place of business is located in a Member State, a single system may be established to meet the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council and its implementing acts and of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 and its delegated and implementing acts. The reporting system shall include:

(i)      reports of and information related to failures, malfunctions, defects or other occurrences which cause or might cause adverse effects on the continuing airworthiness of the product, part or appliance covered by the type-certificate, restricted type-certificate, supplemental type-certificate, ETSO authorisation, major repair design approval or by any other relevant approval deemed to have been issued under this Regulation;

(ii)     errors, near misses and hazards that do not fall under point (i);

2.       make available to known operators of the product, part or appliance and, on request, to any person authorised under other implementing or delegated acts the information about the system established in accordance with point 1, and on how to provide reports of and information related to failures, malfunctions, defects or other occurrences referred to in point 1(i);

3.       report to the Agency any failure, malfunction, defect or other occurrence of which it is aware and is related to a product, part or appliance covered by the type-certificate, restricted type-certificate, supplemental type-certificate, ETSO authorisation, major repair design approval or by any other relevant approval deemed to have been issued under this Regulation, and which has resulted or may result in an unsafe condition.

(b)     Without prejudice to Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council and its delegated and implementing acts, any natural or legal person that holds or has applied for a production organisation approval certificate under Subpart G of this Section, or that produces a product, part or appliance under Subpart F of this Section, shall:

1.       establish and maintain a system for collecting and assessing occurrence reports, including reports on errors, near misses and hazards, in order to identify adverse trends or to address deficiencies and extract occurrences whose reporting is mandatory in accordance with points 2 and 3 and those which are reported voluntarily. For organisations that have their principal place of business in a Member State, a single system may be established to meet the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council and its implementing acts and of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 and its delegated and implementing acts;

2.       report to the responsible design approval holder all the cases where products, parts or appliances have been released by the production organisation and possible deviations from the applicable design data have been subsequently identified, and investigate with the design approval holder to identify those deviations which could lead to an unsafe condition;

3.       report to the competent authority of the Member State responsible in accordance with point 21.1 and the Agency the deviations that have been identified in accordance with point 21.A.3A(b)2 and which could lead to an unsafe condition;

4.       if the production organisation acts as a supplier to another production organisation, also report to that other organisation all the cases where it has released products, parts or appliances to that organisation and possible deviations from the applicable design data have been subsequently identified.

(c)      Without prejudice to Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council and its delegated and implementing acts, any natural or legal person, when reporting in accordance with points (a)(3), (b)(2), (b)(3) and (b)(4), shall appropriately protect the confidentiality of the person who reports and of the person(s) mentioned in the report.

(d)     Without prejudice to Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council and its delegated and implementing acts, any natural or legal person shall make the reports referred to in points (a)(3) and (b)(3) in a form and manner established by the Agency or the competent authority, respectively, and dispatch them as soon as practicable and in any case not later than 72 hours after the natural or legal person has identified that the occurrence may lead to a possible unsafe condition, unless exceptional circumstances prevent this.

(e)     Without prejudice to Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council and its delegated and implementing acts, if an occurrence reported under point (a)(3) or under point (b)(3) results from a deficiency in the design or a production deficiency, the holder of the type-certificate, restricted type-certificate, supplemental type-certificate, major repair design approval, ETSO authorisation or any other relevant approval deemed to have been issued under this Regulation, or the production organisation as appropriate, shall investigate the reason for the deficiency and report to the competent authority of the Member State responsible in accordance with point 21.1 and to the Agency the results of its investigation and any action it intends to take or proposes to be taken to correct that deficiency.

(f)      If the competent authority finds that action is required to correct the deficiency, the holder of the type-certificate, restricted type-certificate, supplemental type-certificate, major repair design approval, ETSO authorisation or any other relevant approval deemed to have been issued under this Regulation, or the production organisation as appropriate, shall submit the relevant data to the competent authority upon its request.