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Safety group gets upgrade

The ad hoc Aviation Safety Council (飛安會) will become an entity independent of the Executive Yuan and have the power to mete out punishment to those refusing to cooperate in its efforts to investigate aviation crashes, a Cabinet official said yesterday.

"If approved by the legislature, the Aviation Safety Council will take full charge of the investigation into civil airliners' aviation accidents, while the Civil Aeronautics Administration under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications will still be in charge of the supervision of the civil aviation industry," the official said.

The investigation and oversight of the military aviation has long fallen on the shoulders of the Ministry of National Defense and it may as well remain the same way as it is now.

However, the government is considering entrusting the Aviation Safety Council with the task of investigating sea and land accidents, the official said.

"The idea is to expand the Aviation Safety Council to become some kind of a transportation safety investigation council, which would handle the investigation of sea, land and air accidents," the officials said.

To that end, the Executive Yuan is due to finish reviewing two draft bills this week. They are the organic law of the Aviation Safety Council (行政院飛航安全委員會組織條例) and the draft bill of the law on the investigation of aviation accidents (飛航事故調查法).

Under the draft of the council's organic law, the council would encompass five members, who are appointed by the premier for a term of three years. In addition to the five members, the council would have at least 18 staffers.

The draft of the aviation investigation law would stipulate that those failing to report to the Aviation Safety Council two hours after an aviation accident takes place would face a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000.

Those refusing to provide information required by the council or causing the loss of the information or evidence would be subject to the same amount of pecuniary penalty.

According to the official, the upgrade of the council's legal status had a lot to do with the devastating crash of China Airlines flight CI611 last year.

The ill-fated jetliner broke into four pieces during its ascent and crashed into the sea en route to Hong Kong on May 25 last year, killing all 225 passengers on aboard.

After one year of investigation, the Aviation Safety Council concluded in June this year that the crash resulted from metal fatigue.

In addition to ordering the upgrade of the council's legal status, Premier Yu Shyi-kun also requested a task force formed under the Cabinet to come up with a plan to improve the aviation safety and in-house management of China Airlines.

The government owns 71 percent of CAL's shares.

Yu also gave a two-year deadline for the company's full privatization project.

China Airlines is dubbed the world's second worst international carrier, according to statistics carried by the Planecrashinfo.com Web site.
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