After a lengthy preparation, the so-called AMC amendment containing SORA 2.5 was published on the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) website on September 29. The renewed AMC (Acceptable Means of Compliance) describes the new methodology for mandatory risk analysis in the special operation category, which must be applied uniformly throughout the European Union. Applications for new operational authorisations should now be submitted in accordance with SORA 2.5, while incumbent operational authorisations (including the documentation of LUC holders) must be brought into line with SORA 2.5 within two years, as per the EASA decision. In our series of articles, we will review the most significant changes affecting the methodology.
The major innovations in SORA 2.5 are brought into the ground risk model. Compared to the previous qualitative model, which distinguished operational scenarios based on general characteristics (e.g., sparsely populated vs. populated areas), the new methodology now uses a quantitative approach based on population density data, and not kinetic energy, but the highest speed will be the determining factor (in addition to the characteristic size, e.g., wingspan) when determining the initial ground risk class. The differences are also clearly illustrated in the two figures.
It used to look like this.
Now it looks this… (source: link)
It is important that ground risk reduction measures will also change. One of the most important innovations is that the M3 – Emergency Response Plan (ERP), as a risk reduction measure, will be eliminated. According to SORA 2.5, ERP will be a mandatory element as part of the operational safety objective number 8 (OSO #08) describing the operational procedures, at all SAIL (risk) levels (in scope and complexity adjusted to the risk level), i.e., it will be an indispensable element of the operator’s documentation without any associated ground risk mitigation effect.
CloudIA Zrt. employees have participated in the creation of several ERPs approved by the aviation authority, so our customers can count on us during the documentation according to SORA 2.5, as the mandatory content elements of ERP have not changed. In our next article, additional ground risk mitigation measures will be presented, as they should be given greater emphasis in the future, since ERP can no longer be taken into account when determining the final risk class.