Liability Impact of Automated Systems in Air Traffic Management

The current legal framework in the ATM domain, despite involving the applicability of different models of liability (fault-liability, strict liability, organisational liability, design liability), does not contemplate the specific issues concerning the relationship between humans and automated systems which will become more and more relevant in the future of ATM: the issues, for instance, related to highly automated systems that perform actions without explicit human intervention; delegation procedures that dynamically transfer responsibility from controllers to pilots or to other technical systems; new allocations of tasks and roles related to the introduction of functional airspace blocks. Such technological changes question the very notion of individual agency, and require a critical revision of the actual human contribution to the performance of ATM, and consequently of the criteria for the allocation of liability.