NEWS POINT

Monthly


ECAC
News
Outgoing and Incoming ECAC Presidents
At their 135th meeting on 7
December, ECACs Directors
General elected Catalin Radu
to be the next President of
ECAC as from 1 January 2011.
Mr Radu has since 2007
been Director General of Civil
Aviation for Romania.
Mr Radu will succeed Luis Fonseca
de Almeida, who will himself take
over on 1 January as ICAO Regional Director for Europe
and the North Atlantic. During his Presidency, Mr
Fonseca has attached particular importance to further
improving ECACs links with its sister organisations in
other regions, and with its bilateral partners, and has
also nurtured good working relationships with ICAO,
the European Commission, EASA and EUROCONTROL.
One development of particular importance during his
Presidency has been the development and implementation
of an ECAC Common Evaluation Process for security
equipment designed for use at airports. Following the
testing of EDS and LEDS equipment, security scanners
are also now to be included in the process.
Mr Radu was born in 1973 in Buzau, Romania, and after graduating from the Polytechnic University in Bucharest he trained at the cole Nationale Suprieure
de lAronautique et de lEspace, in Toulouse, specialising in aerospace engineering. He holds a degree
in International Relationships and European Studies,
with a specialisation in Public Administration Management. Mr Radu is married with two children.
DGCA/135
Following the election of Catalin Radu as the next ECAC
President, Directors General worked through a very
full agenda of other business at their 135th meeting.
Two new members, Frank Durinckx (Belgium), who also
assumed the role of Focal Point for Facilitation and Security, and Peter Mller (Switzerland) were appointed
by acclamation to the ECAC Coordinating Committee,
and there was extensive discussion of the outcomes
of the recent ICAO Assembly, in each of the strategic
policy areas. Decisions were made on the follow-up to
the Third ECAC Forum (see below), and new work was
commissioned in the areas of European Search & Rescue, and English language proficiency in radiotelephony.
Several progress reports were presented, including on
work on alternative fuels for aviation, implementation
of the ECAC security audit and assistance programme,
facilitation activities, the development of an ECAC train-

No. 12

2010

ing policy, and the Common Evaluation Process for security equipment. There were also presentations on
the achievements in the field of aviation of the Belgian
Presidency of the EU, and on the ambitions for that of
Hungary, which commences on 1 January 2011.
The third ECAC Forum was held on 6
December, and focussed this year on
crisis management
in international civil
aviation. Its morning session, expertly
moderated by Bo
Redeborn, Director
of Cooperative Network Design at EUROCONTROL,
saw Directors General reflect on the response of the
European Union to the Eyjafjallajkull eruption last
Spring, assisted by presentations from the European
Commissions Director of Air Transport Daniel Calleja,
and from Erwin van Dijkman, International Director of
the Institute for Safety, Security and Crisis Management. The discussion was then broadened during the
afternoon session when Peter Griffiths, Chief Executive Officer of tewg ApS, moderated a debate on the
lessons learnt in the Spring, and on their wider application. He was supported by Joachim Heisig, Head of
Emergency Response Planning at Lufthansa, and Jan
Metsovitis, Director of the Aviation Business Unit at
Athens International Airport.
All participants judged the Forum to have been a very
considerable success, and to have stimulated a lively
and thought-provoking discussion. Directors General will be continuing to monitor, through ECAC, the
progress made in implementing the lessons for European aviation offered by the Eyjafjallajkull eruption, as
well as reflecting on the possible development of a European model for aviation crisis management.
Modelling and Interdependencies Task Group (MITG)
On 1 December, in
the city of Bern snowy
enough
to
prevent
some from attending,
MITG held its fifteenth
meeting, under the
chairmanship of Urs
Ziegler (FOCA). A busy
agenda saw members
updated on CAEP/9
modelling work and

2
discuss the importance of Europes continued active
participation in this critical activity, which could lead
in due course to the setting of global environmental
standards. The meeting was also briefed on a wide
range of European environmental modelling projects,
including the X-Noise programme which should be able
to continue aspects of the now-terminated AERONET
project. It was confirmed that on 10 December a
presentation on the work of MITG would be given to the
Steering Committee of the Clean-Sky JTI Technology
Evaluator, and the MITG meeting agreed on the
contents of the presentation and the composition of
the MITG delegation.
Eric Dautriat, the Executive Director of the CleanSky
Joint Undertaking, welcomed the MITG members who
had been invited to its Steering Committee meeting,
and the steps thus taken by MITG towards a good coordination and mutual information.
Amendment of ECAC Recommendation for a NOx
emissions classification scheme
ECAC Directors General were briefed at their latest
meeting on work under way in ANCAT to prepare an
amendment to ECAC Recommendation 27-4, which
provides a model methodology for assessing NOx emissions from aero-engines in a harmonised manner. The
amendment would extend this harmonisation to small
engines, which are not presently addressed by the
Recommendation. The ad hoc group leading this work
under Swiss chairmanship presented its report and
proposed draft amendments to Novembers meeting
of ANCAT, and consultations on these are now taking
place in Member States and within EASA. The intention
is to put a formal proposal to amend Recommendation
27-4 to Directors General at their meeting in May, after
a final review by ANCAT shortly before that.
Second Vulnerability Assessment Training Course
The second Vulnerability Assessment training course
was held on 8 and 9 December. Seven participants
from different States participated in this training
which was followed by a certification session. The training focussed on landside security and insider threat.
Those certified will be participating in teams allocated
to meet the demand from Member States for Vulnerability Assessments in 2011.
Workshop on Covert Testing

ACC holds 34th meeting in Istanbul

December 14/15 saw ECACs expert group on accident
investigation (ACC) hold its thirty-fourth meeting, this
time in Istanbul at the kind invitation of the Turkish aviation authorities. Presentations on the development of
Turkish aviation and the organisation of aviation safety
investigation in Turkey were followed by ACCs annual
survey of accidents and incidents investigated over
the past year by Europes aviation safety investigators.
The second of the ACC workshops on underwater location and recovery was reviewed, together with draft
guidance derived from the two workshops, now nearing final form. The meeting discussed the outcomes
of the ICAO High Level Safety Conference and ICAO Assembly, and considered the new provisions in the latest amendment to Annex 13. Finally, recent developments in other fora were discussed, most notably the
new EU Regulation on the investigation and prevention
of accidents and incidents in civil aviation.

W hat s

on in

J anuary 2011?

10-15 ECAC Auditors training course (AUDITOR TRAIN),

at EASTI in Brussels
11-12 Eighth meeting of the Common Evaluatio Process
Management Group (CEP-MG/8), in Paris
16-17 ECAC Auditors Certification (AUDITOR CERT), at
EASTI in Brussels
18-19 Sixteenth meeting of the Training Task Force
(TRAINING-TF/16), in Brussels
tba

Second meeting of the Steering Committee to

prepare the ECAC/EU Dialogue (ECAC/EU-Dial.
St.C/2), in London

Seasons Greetings
and
a happy, safe and
prosperous
New Year 2011
The ECAC Secretariat

News Point Editor: Angelika Kupka

ECAC Secretariat
3 bis, Villa Emile Bergerat
F-92522 Neuilly-sur-Seine cedex

Tel : 33 (0) 1 46 41 85 44
Fax : 33 (0) 1 76 73 98 57
e-mail : secretariat@ecac-ceac.org
www.ecac-ceac.org

Ekaterina Pokrovsky

A workshop on national covert testing programmes

was held on 15
December in the
ECAC offices for
eight
Member
States requesting
assistance
in this area. The
workshop
was
greatly facilitated by the valuable support of the DGAC

(France) who in addition to speakers provided test

objects to help participants understand the practical
issues related to operational implementation of testing. The workshop is the first of a two-step process,
and each of the States now has to progress their own
test protocols. On completion of the protocols, dates
in 2011 will be agreed for a pilot series of tests in each
State supported by experts from the ECAC Assistance
Programme.