Kate Manderson¹, Cheryl Charlwood
¹Civil Aviation Safety Authority 
 
Aviation deaths are relatively rare in Australia, with our aviation system recognised as one of the safest in the world. This means that the quality and consistency of information from investigations of each of our few fatal aircraft is very important. Gathering medical information in the event of an aviation safety incident is a requirement of Australia's compliance with the Chicago Convention of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and is fundamental to developing a full picture not just of individual accident factors, but the medical and human performance functions within our aviation safety system. For activities that are rarely performed, standardised clinical guidelines are important to ensure the future performance of that activity doesn't depend on each clinician performing that task re-constructing the task or remembering the previous event. With these issues in mind, CASA, in collaboration with the RAAF Institute of Aviation Medicine, has created a Clinical Practice Guideline for standardised approach to collection and analysis of the medical aspects of aircraft accidents in Australia. It is hoped that this guideline will support all agencies involved in investigating, analysing and learning from aircraft accidents in Australia to adopt a consistent approach to gathering this critical set of data.