The Pre-Implementation Safety Case for RVSM in European Airspace is Flawed

Peter B. Ladkin

In their issue of 16 November 2003, the english journal New Scientist published an article about my criticism of Eurocontrol's Safety Case for their RVSM program. This article is available on-line at New Scientist.Com OnLine News Service: European airspace safety rules "flawed"

My initial criticism of the Safety Case is available in Technical Note RVS-Occ-02-03 The Pre-Implementation Safety Case for RVSM in European Airspace is Flawed

I subsequently met with the RVSM Program Manager Joe Sultana, the Deputy Program Manager Chris Bouman, and the Safety Manager Bernd Tiemeyer at Eurocontrol in Brussels in November 2003. They indicated to be that they believed I had misunderstood the argumentation in the Safety Case, and the datafrom Eurocontrol's ACASA project on which they claimed it was based.

I looked closely at that data and the results of the ACASA project, and concluded that they do not - and cannot - support the assertions which Messrs Sultana, Bouman and Tiemeyer say they used as assumptions in their Safety Case.

A brief update of my critique, taking into account the suggestions of Eurocontrol's RVSM Programme Managers, may be found at The Pre-Implementation Safety Case: Update