Written by Managing Principal Consultant, Steve Hough
EASA recently released the 2025 update to the European Plan for Aviation Safety, known as the EPAS.
What is the European Plan for Aviation Safety (EPAS)
The 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. Designed as the Regional Aviation Safety Plan for EASA Member States, the EPAS reinforces safety management at regional, State, and industry levels.
As well as providing a plan for the management of safety, the EPAS is also an ideal tool to enhance an organisation's hazard identification and risk register by highlighting the aviation safety risks faced across the industry in Europe but also easily transferable into global operations.
The updated Safety Risk Portfolios (Volume 3) identifies safety issues from occurrence data submitted to EASA through European Coordination Centre for Accident and Incident Reporting Systems (ECCAIRS) and other methods, covering multiple aviation domains from commercial air transport to balloons.
Aligning your safety management with EPAS
Good practice is to review this document and compare it to your own risk register and see if there are emerging risks that you may not have considered or if the nature of the safety issue you have already identified needs review and updating. This is of particular value to smaller organisations that have yet to collate enough data on their own operation to identify a trend. However, utilising the volume of collective European data can greatly aid in this hazard identification process. There are a total of 211 safety issues identified across all domains.
Since 2024 there are 8 new higher-risk safety issues entering the top 20:
- Impact of Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) interferences on civil aviation operations (Commercial Air Transport Airplane related).
- Inadvertent flight into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) / Scud running (Non-commercial operation Airplane related).
- Oxygen-fed fire in the cockpit (Airworthiness related).
- Icing in flight. (Commercial Air Transport Airplane related)
- Inadequate airborne separation under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) operation (Rotorcraft related)
- Inadvertent flight into IMC (Rotorcraft related)
- In-flight decision making (Non-commercial operation Airplane related).
- Poor operational management at take-off and landing sites (Rotorcraft related)
What is covered in EPAS 2025
This latest release of EPAS consists of 3 Volumes:
- Volume 1: Strategic Priorities
Provides the executive summary, introduction and information on the operational context. This volume is updated every 3 years, the current version is the 23-25 edition and will next be updated in 2026. - Volume 2: EPAS Actions
This has been updated this year and contains a detailed list and description of all the EPAS actions. The 2025 edition includes:- 2 new specific Rule Making Tasks (RMTs)
- 3 new regular update RMTs
- 1 reactivated RMT
- 1 new Implementation Support Task (IST).
- Volume 3: Safety Risk Portfolios
Part of the 2025 updates, this volume provides the overview of the main safety risks affecting the European aviation system and underlying safety issues.
You can read the latest edition of EPAS on the EASA website.
Next steps – updating your hazard register
The updated EPAS actions and safety risk portfolios may highlight areas of your Safety Risk Management process in need of reviewing and updating, including your hazard register.
Our practical approach to training and consulting can enable you to achieve the highest levels of Safety Risk Management performance, contributing to greater operational success. Find out more about how our experts can help you review and enhance a Safety Risk Management System by contacting us on +44 (0)1276 535 725 or at enquires@bainessimmons.com.