Direction générale de l'aviation civile (DGAC)

Service technique de l'aviation civile

Background

Since 1979, the member states of the ICAO have been invited to report all bird impacts recorded worldwide. In Europe, since 2003, Eurocontrol has asked EU member states to collect, analyze, process and store aviation safety information. In France, the 2007 decree provided that animal impacts be collected at national level.

About PICA

PICA has been developed by the STNA then the STAC (Animal Risk Subdivision) since the 1980s. In January 2010 it was renamed PicaWeb following its uploading onto the STAC website. In 2016, this application interfaced with Eccairs, re-assumed its original name PICA.

PICA can be launched by means of the following links: via the STAC intranet http://picaweb.stac.aviation/picaweb and via the www.stac.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/picaweb intranet

This specific software, with an online help, identifies animal collisions and can be used for work such as follow-ups, reports, searches (simple with three criteria or advanced on all fields) and predetermined calculations, either at national level or per airfield.

The latter make it possible to distribute the collisions in a thematic way (by: species, effect on the flight, phase of flight, etc.) and also to evaluate the animal risk thanks to the calculations of Incident Rate, the Animal Risk in France Index and the Animal Risk Level.

The results are presented in tabular form, often with graphical or cartographic representations. The latest version offers a new feature, the Monthly Information Bulletin, providing a summary of the animal situation at national level.

Access

PICA has user filters that give "unrestricted" access to DGAC agents and to external third parties such as: airport operators, airlines, scientists, consulting firms, applying adapted validity and confidentiality conditions. The access request is made to the following address: stac-picaweb@aviation-civile.gouv.fr

Today, PICA is a crucial aid to decision-making in the context of aviation safety supervision.

Updated on November 22 2022