The European Plan for Aviation Safety (EPAS) outlines the strategic priorities for aviation safety and environmental protection, the primary safety risks and other issues affecting the European aviation safety system, and the necessary measures to mitigate them.
New Strategic Priorities in Volume I
EPAS Volume I ‘Strategic Priorities’ 2023-2025 has been extended until the end of 2026, as the Agency is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of the approach to the EPAS. An addendum document to Volume I introduces the following 3 new strategic priorities:
- Big data technologies to support the EU aviation safety risk management.
- Rules simplification.
- SES 2+ framework implementation.
There are also some changes to the following strategic priorities for which the scope has had to be significantly amended to maintain consistency with the related EPAS actions.
EPAS Actions (Volume II) – 31 actions completed, 15 new actions added
Volume II ‘EPAS Actions’ provides the plan for the actions to mitigate the main safety risks identified in Volume III. It also includes other actions needed to ensure efficiency, proportionality and a level playing field, and to address environmental protection priorities.
Following the completion of 31 actions in 2025, the 2026 Edition of EPAS Volume II contains 129 actions, 15 of which are new.
Among these 15 new actions, 12 are rulemaking tasks (RMTs):
5 new RMTs in the Design and Production domain:
- Regular update to the Detailed Technical Specifications for Part 21 Light,
- Changed product rule,
- Flight crew alerting systems for large aeroplanes,
- Emergency evacuation procedures, and
- Safe operation of large aeroplanes in supercooled large droplet icing conditions.
3 new RMTs in the Flight Operations domain:
- Complex motor-powered aircraft and high-performance aircraft,
- Operational requirements for flights related to design and production (‘manufacturer flights’), and
- Group operations.
2 new RMTs addressing New Technologies and Concepts:
- Common requirements for air traffic data services (ADS) providers, and
- Alignment of the common requirements for ATM/ANS providers with SES 2+.
1 new RMT addressing Rotorcraft:
- Air-pocket design feature and occupant underwater escape.
1 new RMT in the ATM/ANS domain:
- Revision of the performance-based navigation regulation.
Additionally, 3 new implementation support tasks (ISTs) are introduced to support the implementation of EU requirements for:
- Performance-based navigation,
- Counter unmanned aircraft systems initiatives, and
- Flight simulator training device capability signature framework.
Safety Risk Portfolio (Volume III) includes 2 new Safety Issues
EPAS Volume III ‘Safety Risk Portfolio’ provides the overview of the safety issues affecting the European aviation system. Volume III was reviewed and updated through the Safety Risk Management (SRM) process cycle by EASA in collaboration with safety partners from national competent authorities and the industry (through the collaborative safety analysis groups and the network of aviation safety analysts).
Two new safety issues were added to the Safety Risk Portfolio:
- SI-9011 ‘In-flight fires in inaccessible areas”.
- SI-0060 ‘Out-of-spec synthetic aviation turbine fuels (SATF) in operations’.
The higher-risk safety issues in the EU aviation system, irrespective of the SRM step they are currently in, can be seen in the top 20 cross-domain safety issues.
The links between safety issues and the worst likely key risk areas to which they contribute are presented in Appendix A to EPAS Volume III. The links between safety issues and the mitigating actions in EPAS Volume II are provided in Appendix B to EPAS Volume III.
If you work for an operational aviation organization, consider the relevance of the safety issues identified in Volume III to your own operation and risk mitigations.