What is an incident?

What is an incident?

• A. An event that affects or could affect safety but is less severe than an accident.
• B. An event causing death or serious injury.
• C. A routine maintenance issue.
• D. A flight delay due to weather.

Answer: (A)

In aviation safety, an incident is any event with safety significance that could affect safety or did affect safety, but does not rise to the level of an accident. It includes near-misses or events where a safety risk was present and potentially could have caused harm, yet the outcome was not as severe as an accident. This matches the described option: it emphasizes safety impact and a severity below an accident. The other statements describe outcomes that aren’t incidents by definition—an event causing death or serious injury is an accident; a routine maintenance issue isn’t automatically an incident unless it creates a safety risk; a weather-based flight delay is a disruption, not a safety event.

In aviation safety, an incident is any event with safety significance that could affect safety or did affect safety, but does not rise to the level of an accident. It includes near-misses or events where a safety risk was present and potentially could have caused harm, yet the outcome was not as severe as an accident.

This matches the described option: it emphasizes safety impact and a severity below an accident. The other statements describe outcomes that aren’t incidents by definition—an event causing death or serious injury is an accident; a routine maintenance issue isn’t automatically an incident unless it creates a safety risk; a weather-based flight delay is a disruption, not a safety event.