With last Saturday's China Airlines crash still clear in their minds, legislators yesterday mulled a wide range of responses, from beefing up protections of consumer rights to the replacement of old helicopters.
PFP legislators Lee Hung-chun (
According to the legislators, consumers should have the right to this information before boarding a plane and the right to reject planes that are unfit for flying.
This information, the lawmakers argue, should include the conditions, date of manufacture, maintenance record and total flying time of the aircraft as well as the flying experience of its pilots.
Under the proposed amendments, airlines failing to make the information public would face punishments such as having their planes grounded, having their air-worthy certificates revoked and being fined up to NT$3 million.
In the case of a severe offense, the Civil Aeronautics Administration could order an airline to suspend business partially or completely and even cancel its business license, according to the proposal.
In another initiative, a group of KMT legislators, led by Chiang Yi-wen (
According to the KMT lawmakers, the 30-year-old helicopters were acquired by the administration from the army and are not designed for rescue missions.
They criticized the government for treating human life carelessly by allowing the aircraft to continue this type of service.
Meanwhile, DPP legislators Charles Chiang (江昭儀) and Lee Chen-nan (李鎮楠) said that the lack of flight safety awareness is a widespread problem in Taiwan, where a total of 16 major air accidents have occurred over the past three years.
With an air accident taking place on average every 2.2 months, the China Airlines crash is only the tip of the iceberg, Chiang and Lee said.
Pointing the finger at the Aviation Safety Council, they said the high accident rate indicates that the council has done only a "perfunctory" job and that council's managing director, Yong Kay (戎凱), should step down to take responsibility for the situation.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
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