Incident whose circumstances indicate there was a high probability of an accident, and which is therefore formally investigated with the same rigour as an accident.
What it is
What separates an incident from a serious incident is not the outcome but how small the remaining margin was. ICAO Annex 13 calls for serious incidents to be investigated with the same independence and method as accidents, because they hold almost every lesson an accident would teach, without the consequences.
The Annex gives an indicative list: near collisions that required an avoiding manoeuvre, controlled flight into terrain only narrowly avoided, take-offs or landings on a closed or occupied runway or on a taxiway, fire or smoke on board even if extinguished, pilot incapacitation, fuel so low that an emergency had to be declared, runway excursions, and multiple system failures that seriously affected the operation.
A generic example: two aircraft that, through a coordination error, end up far closer than permitted and are kept apart only by their TCAS alerts. Nobody is hurt and neither aircraft is damaged, yet the investigation authority opens a case, analyses the recordings and usually issues recommendations.
Related terms
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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Serious incident. Retrieved October 18, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident
MLA
“Serious incident.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident. Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “Serious incident.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) Serious incident. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident (Accessed: 18 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_serious_incident,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{Serious incident}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-09},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident}},
urldate = {2026-10-18},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-18}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/serious-incident |title=Serious incident |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-18 |language=en}}