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UK Civil Aviation Regulations

These are published by the CAA on our UK Regulations pages. EU Regulations and EASA Access Guides published by EASA no longer apply in the UK. Our website and publications are being reviewed to update all references. Any references to EU law and EASA Access guides should be disregarded and where applicable the equivalent UK versions referred to instead.



Safety plans are used to highlight safety issues and to detail actions taken to improve safety as well as to communicate them to regulatory staff as well as to the industry.

The National Aviation Safety Plan (NASP) sets out how the UK manages safety risks. It is used to manage actions associated with the mitigation of specific safety risks and to communicate those to industry. New safety risks may be identified from the State Safety Programme (SSP), the regulatory safety management system, and horizon scanning. The NASP is updated every two years as a minimum.

Details on how safety plans are implemented in the Crown Dependencies can be found within their state safety programmes, links to these can be found below.

The nature of civil aviation across the UK Overseas Territories varies in the type and scale of operations. Due to the geographical spread of the Overseas Territories, there are many regional influences and relationships that differ from the UK and Europe. Therefore, although the Overseas Territories form part of the overall UK SSP, it is more practicable and appropriate for each Overseas Territory to devise an SSP to address the specific safety needs of their civil aviation. Initially the primary focus has been on tackling the gaps and developing the Overseas Territories SSPs to set up the processes to identify risk areas. This has evolved towards the SSP generating workstreams based on the identified risks for the Overseas Territories.

The MOD's requirements for safety are laid out in Defence Safety Authority (DSA) publication DSA 01.1 – Defence Policy for Health, Safety and Environmental Protection. All organisations within the Defence Air Environment (DAE) are required by RA 1200 – Defence Air Safety Management to have a plan to manage air safety. The MAA is engaged, through the Department for Transport and CAA, with the UK SSP to ensure appropriate action. Safety information is provided to the DAE as directed by MAA01 – Military Aviation Authority Regulatory Policy.

Useful links