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Aviation Security Incident Reporting

The Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 (the Act) and Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005 require all aviation industry participants with an approved aviation security program to formally report to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, through the Office of Transport Security (OTS), all known threats and incidents of unlawful interference with aviation.

OTS will use the incident information to assist the Australian Government to safeguard against unlawful interference with aviation.

Reporting Responsibilities

The Act requires certain categories of persons to report incidents. These persons include:

• Airport operators and aircraft operators;
• Persons with incident reporting responsibilities (including aviation security inspectors, airport security guards, a screening officer and certain other aviation industry participants including regulated air cargo agents); and
• Employees of aviation industry participants.

All of these categories of persons must report the incident in the manner required by the Act as soon as possible. The Act creates an offence for failure to comply with these reporting responsibilities. The penalty for these offences can be up to 200 penalty units ($22,000).

Witnesses can assist their employers with their reporting responsibilities by recording as much information about the incident as possible, including information about people, aircraft and buildings, if involved.

Other responsible organisations must also be notified of the incident as required under the Act, including the Federal Police and State/Territory Police.

Reporting an Incident

Aviation security incidents must be reported to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. A report submitted to the OTS Coordination Centre using the Aviation Security Incident Report (ASIR) form and including the required information will fulfil reporting requirements to the Department under Part 6 of the Act.

Reports may be made by:

• completing the Aviation Security Incident Report Form online.
• downloading the Aviation Security Incident Report Form [DOC: 153 KB] [PDF: 43 KB]
  and fax to (02) 6274 6089 or email: transport.security@infrastructure.gov.au
• calling the Coordination Centre on 1300 307 288. All verbal reports must be followed up in writing within 24hrs.

Further Information

• Guidance Material has been developed to assist you with fulfilling your reporting responsibilities. It includes information on incident reporting, examples of aviation incidents, links to the relevant legislation, and the Department's gazette notice on how incident reports are to be made.