The government will pay for the investigation and salvage expenses caused by aircraft accidents involving commercial airlines, public aircraft and ultralights if the legislature passes a new aviation law.
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the aviation accident investigation law (
The draft would also impose fines on those refusing or failing to cooperate with the government's efforts to investigate aircraft accidents.
Under the draft, the Aviation Safety Council would become the Aviation Safety Investigation Board. The board would be responsible for investigating "aviation occurrences" involving commercial or public aircraft or ultralights other than those operated by Taiwanese armed forces or intelligence agencies.
"Aviation occurrence" is defined as any accident or incident associated with the operation of an aircraft, and any situation or condition that the board has reasonable grounds to believe could, if left unattended, induce an accident or incident.
The draft also stipulates that the board must shoulder expenses related to the investigation of an aviation occurrence, salvage and transportation of the data-recording devices and wreckage of the aircraft.
The board would also be empowered to request information, interviews or assistance from certain people or agencies.
Those refusing to respond to the accident and assist the board in the investigation efforts would face a fine of between NT$600,000 and NT$3 million.
Those providing false information or failing to provide related information without reasonable grounds would receive a fine of between NT$500,000 and NT$2.5 million.
While the aviation safety investigation board would be the only party responsible for making public the investigation information, unauthorized personnel leaking information could face a fine of more than NT$60,000 and up to NT$300,000.
Besides the draft aviation accident investigation law, the Cabinet yesterday also approved the draft bill of the organic law of the aviation safety investigation board (行政院飛航安全調查委員會組織條例) and draft amendments to the Civil Aviation Law (民用航空法).
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift