Aviation safety involves many issues within a complex system, and each individual issue has a close bearing on the life of each person aboard each aircraft. It is now a matter of extreme urgency that, following a spate of air crashes, all agencies concerned carry out a thorough investigation of aviation in Taiwan in order to identify every problem that threatens the nation's aviation safety.
We as a society must ensure that that process is carefully overseen so that all sectors of the industry fulfill their duties and that safety is guaranteed. Unfortunately, we now find a lot of people selfishly and ruthlessly using the deaths of 225 people aboard flight CI611 for their own interests, instead of actively seeking ways to prevent a repetition of the tragedy.
Forget about the media's gross sensationalism and complete lack of ethics, its close-ups of the deceased and their grieving families, and the reckless reporting of unconfirmed information that distressed the families. We are now presented with a much uglier spectacle -- the farce of the politicians.
Indeed, some politicians are attempting to push the government into establishing direct cross-strait flights, claiming that this would reduce the risk of air crashes. Following this logic, they should work on promoting direct links between Taiwan and all other countries, not just China.
Flying to Hong Kong is no riskier than flying anywhere else. Direct links with China may be a good thing, but they require much more rational discussion. Only the full attention to and meticulous practice of aviation safety by all concerned, including government agencies, airlines and society in general can really guarantee a safe trip, regardless of destina-tion. It is clear that it's huge business interests rather than transport safety that stand to gain from direct links. This is all that really matters to these politicians.
More absurd and illogical still are those politicians who claim that changing China Airlines' name to "Formosa Airlines" or "Taiwan Airlines" could help the carrier shed its reputation for being crash-prone. Aviation safety concerns manufacturing and maintenance processes, airline cultures, airline regulations, crew training, security checks, accident investigation procedures, implementing safety recommendations and so on. Neglecting these crucial factors and suggesting that an ideologically charged name could succeed in wiping out responsibility for a series of horrific crashes is illogical. It also diverts attention from the critical issue of aviation safety and misleads people into believing that aviation safety is a simple matter.
Sure, Taiwan's independence should be fully recognized by the international community. But aviation safety is not a matter to be confused by politicians with Taiwan's world status. The name-change proposal is designed simply to get these politicians media exposure and votes. It is an imprudent proposal which not only does nothing for aviation safety, but also disgraces the struggle for Taiwan's recognition.
Politicians have rarely done anything for aviation safety. They claim to sympathize with the victims and to be concerned about the public interest, but they're really only interested in putting on their little shows.
The nonsense they splutter simply adds insult to injury after a major tragedy. Their request that investigators and other officials be removed from search-and-rescue duties to brief them simply delays the investigation.
If this farce is our reward for the repeated sacrifice of lives in crashes, how will aviation safety ever be made a priority? Let's hope that in the drive to reduce the number of legislators, politicians will also focus on reducing the number of imbeciles who pretend to represent us!
Chuang Chi-ting works for a non-governmental organization and is a freelance writer based in Taipei.
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