ICAO ANNEX 19

If you or your company owns a business jet but do not have an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Annex 19-compliant Safety Management System (SMS) in place, your aircraft could be barred from landing at international ports in the near future. ICAO Annex 19 requires business and commercial operators to establish SMS, and ICAO member countries will soon be audited for their oversight of SMS within their borders.

What is ICAO Annex 19?

As the United Nations’ specialized agency governing aviation, the ICAO sets standards and recommended practices for its member nations regarding various facets of aviation. ICAO Annex 19 was initially published in 2013 to combine safety standards that had previously been scattered throughout several annexes, rewrote them, and added new standards.

State-level versus operator level

ICAO Annex 19 Chapter 3 requires member states to establish their own State Safety Programme (SSP). As part of their SSP, the state must require applicable operators to implement a compliant SMS. ICAO is scheduled to begin audits at the state level in 2018, although this may slip with the adoption of Annex 19 Amendment 1 applicability date of November 2019. The audits will ensure that the states have implemented their SSP and put regulations in place to oversee and audit operators’ SMS in their states.

Chapter 4.2 specifies requirements at the operator level, specially for international general aviation. It provides high-level recommendations for SMS processes and provisions.

Applicability to business aviation

ICAO Annex 19 explicitly applies to two groups of business aviation operators:

Aircraft (including helicopter) operators conducting international commercial air transport (charter operators)
International general aviation operators of large or turbojet (jet) airplanes as specified by Annex 6, Part II

“Large” is defined as more than 12,500 pounds (5,670 kg) maximum takeoff weight (MTOW); for comparison, a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop is 10,500 lb (MTOW) and does not meet this requirement. However, all business jets meet this requirement.

What this means for you

If you fly your jet exclusively within the borders of its country of registry, you may not need to implement an SMS – yet. However, assuming your aircraft is registered in one of the 191 ICAO member states, your state has or will establish requirements for business aviation operators to meet ICAO Annex 19 before ICAO begins audit procedures in 2018 or 2019. And if you plan to fly to Europe in a non-EU registered aircraft, you must have SMS documentation to obtain Third Country Operator authorization to land . Some ICAO countries (Bermuda, France, and Mexico, for example) are already requesting operators to present SMS documentation to obtain landing permits.

Fortunately, there are several resources for implementing an ICAO Annex 19-compliant SMS, including the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO), a wide range of SMS third party contractors and software, the ICAO Safety Management Manual (Doc 9859), and Appendix 2 of the Annex 19 itself.

Contact your Jetex representative if you have questions about ICAO Annex 19 or SMS in general.

Get in touch with us today.

Jetex Dubai
+971 4 2124000
info@jetex.com

Jetex Miami
+1 305 306 4000
itp@jetex.com

Alternatively, read more about other permits and permissions required when flying to the AmericasEMEA or Asia Pacific.