Definition
A joint international working group formed by the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to develop and maintain common taxonomies and definitions used to classify aviation accidents and incidents. Its standardized categories allow safety data from different countries and organizations to be compared and analyzed consistently.
Plain English
A group that creates the shared list of category names and definitions used worldwide to label aviation accidents and incidents, so investigators everywhere describe the same event the same way.
Context Anchor
Seen in aviation safety reports, accident and incident databases, and discussions of standardized safety-event categories.
Derivation
Taxonomy comes from the Greek taxis meaning 'arrangement' and -nomia meaning 'method' -- literally a method of arranging things into categories. The team's job is exactly that: agreeing on the categories used to sort aviation safety events.
Why Pilots Care
When pilots read accident summaries or safety statistics, the categories used (loss of control in flight, runway excursion, controlled flight into terrain, etc.) come from this team's work. Consistent categories make trends visible and let the industry target real risks.
Intuition Check
Do not read “team” as a flight crew or operational unit. Here it means a standards group that organizes aviation safety language.
Example Sentence 1
The accident was classified as a runway excursion using the categories defined by the CAST/ICAO Common Taxonomy Team.
Example Sentence 2
Updates from the Cast/Icao Common Taxonomy Team help standardize how events like runway incursions are recorded.