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Air regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has remained tight-lipped over whether it has any reports of pilot sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFO) and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) over Runcorn and Widnes and surrounding areas.

The CAA said it could ‘neither confirm nor deny’ whether it held such data in reply to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request.

In its response, the authority said any reports of that type would be filed under the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme (MORS), which requires aviators to provide details of any safety-related event which, if not corrected or addressed, could endanger an aircraft, its occupants or anyone else.

Rihanne Stephen, CAA information rights officer, said it was possible for requests for information on safety grounds to be made.

The MORS scheme is covered by European Union regulation 376/2014 and the CAA said confidentiality was the main factor for exemption from FOI.

Mrs Stephen said: “The civil aviation safety system is established on the basis of feedback and lessons learned from accidents and incidents.

“Occurrence reporting and the use of occurrence information for the improvement of safety depend on a relationship of trust between the reporter and the entity in charge of the collection and assessment of the information.

“This requires strict application of rules on confidentiality.

“The purpose of protecting safety information from inappropriate use, and of limiting access to occurrence information solely to interested parties participating in the improvement of civil aviation safety, is to ensure the continuing availability of safety information so that appropriate and timely preventive action can be taken and aviation safety improved.

“The regulation requires that appropriate measures are put in place to ensure that information collected through occurrence reporting schemes is kept confidential, and that the information should be used strictly for the purpose of maintaining or improving aviation safety and should not be used to attribute blame or liability.”