China Airlines obliged to repay rescue costs: MND

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said it will ask the Executive Yuan to discuss who should pay the huge costs incurred by the rescue efforts for China Airlines' (CAL) disastrous air crash near Penghu on May 25 last year.

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) spent more than NT$140 million on rescue operations and asked the MOTC to ask China Airlines to pay the bill, an MOTC official confirmed yesterday.

In response to the defense ministry's request, the MOTC said it plans to ask the Executive Yuan's National Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission to decide which agency should pay the bill.

The defense ministry demanded that CAL to pay the bill on a pay-per-use basis because the airline was responsible for the rescue costs.

"The MOTC agrees with the MND's pay-per-use stance," said Lee Long-wen (李龍文), director of MOTC's Department of Navigation and Aviation.

However, Lee said the law does not stipulate that airlines should pay for rescue efforts carried out by governmental agencies.

Lee said that aviation is an international enterprise.

"We need to study how other countries deal with costs spent in rescue efforts for air crashes," Lee said.

It is important for the government's decision to be consistent with other countries' approaches when handling such costs because "our flights could crash in other countries," Lee said.

Meanwhile, CAL did not directly decline to pay the costs but maintained that the law does not say that airlines have to pay for rescue efforts in such circumstances.

"There are no legal grounds for demanding that airlines pay such costs," said Roger Han (韓梁中), spokesman of CAL.

"As far as I know, no domestic airlines have paid for rescue costs for such disasters," Han said.

According to CAL, in two of its previous major crashes, which took place in Japan's Nagoya in 1994 and Taoyuan County in 1998, the Japanese government and MOTC paid for the rescue operations.

Nevertheless, CAL expressed a willingness to negotiate with related agencies about how to solve the payment dispute.

According to the defense ministry, from May 25 to July 12, 133,226 soldiers had been dispatched to aid the rescue efforts.

Moreover, during the period, the defense ministry also deployed 1,861 ships, 270 aircraft and 2,512 vehicles for the operation.

In October last year, the Ministry of the Interior held inter-ministry negotiations, during which the defense ministry insisted it would not pay the bill because the costs would affect its own budget.

Apart from the defense ministry, the Executive Yuan's Coast Guard Administration, which took part in the rescue efforts, also asked CAL to pay for the NT$70 million it spent on the operation.

According to the Disaster Prevention and Rescue Law (災害防救法), the government pays for the costs incurred by rescue operations within 72 hours after disasters take place.

However, there is no law regulating which agency should pay for rescue operations after the 72-hour period is over.