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CAA may soon approve airports for light planes

A civil aeronautics official said yesterday that the government was nearing approval of two locations as the site of the nation's first two legal airports for light aircraft.

The two sites are Houlong (後龍) in Miaoli County and Dapeng Bay (大鵬灣) in Pingtung County, Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Director General Billy Chang (張國政) told a press conference yesterday.

Chang said the CAA was working with the Sports Affairs Council to conduct final inspections of the two locations before it could start issuing operating licenses.

The CAA is also considering opening the airports in Wangan (望安) in Penghu County and Hengchun (恆春) in Pingtung County for light aircraft.

Chang pointed out that all existing airfields for light aircraft are illegal facilities, although some operators claim having 1,000 members across the nation.

"They are illegal not because the operators could not find appropriate land," Chang said. "It's because [many of these operators] are unwilling to deal with complicated issues involving taxes and change of land use and applying for a license."

The press conference yesterday was held following the plane crash in Taitung last Saturday, which resulted in the death of both the pilot and a passenger.

CAA statistics show a total of 28 major accidents involving light aircraft since 1990, leading to 28 deaths and 14 injuries.

Close to 40 percent of these accidents occurred as a result of mechanical problem. Approximately 31 percent were a result of pilot error.

Chang said that the CAA was mulling penalizing these illegal operators as a way to force them to apply for a license.

"The Ministry of the Interior has already said that land use in the nation is regulated as a whole, and it cannot compromise public interest simply because of a privileged few," he said.
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