Aviation Safety Council (ASC) chairperson Jean Shen (沈啟) was yesterday relieved of her post at the instigation of lawmakers on the legislature’s Transportation Committee who criticized her involvement in the investigation of aviation accidents that occurred during her tenure as the director-general of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).
The events took place during a question-and-answer session of the committee, which was scheduled to review the ASC’s budget for the 2016 fiscal year.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津), Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) and Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) all questioned the propriety of Shen becoming ASC chairperson after she retired from the CAA in January.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Yeh said that four of the nine aviation accidents currently being investigated by the ASC occurred when Shen was the CAA director-general. She said that two of them — the TransAsia Airways Flight GE222 crash in Penghu in July last year, and TransAsia Airways Flight GE235, which crashed into the Keelung River in Taipei in February — are being scrutinized with particular severity because of the high numbers killed and injured in the disasters.
The conclusions of the investigations would seem less credible to the public because Shen is both “the player” and “referee” in these investigations, Yeh said.
Lee said that Shen should resign because the council’s investigation would not be convincing enough for the families of those killed in the two incidents if she stayed in the post.
He said Shen would at least keep her self-esteem if she leaves, adding her resignation would allow the truth to speak for itself and the families to get the justice they deserve.
Lo said that the agency is investigating accidents which occured under Shen’s watch, and it is strange to see Shen as both the investigator and the one under investigation.
Kuan said the Flight GE222 crash may have happened because the runway lighting was dimmer than the street lights in the village outside Penghu’s Magong Airport. She said that the fight deviated from its designated flight route because it was actually guided by the street lights in the village.
“If the report of the investigation fails to identify this as the cause of the accident, the council is then deliberately determined to let the CAA off the hook and blame it all on those who cannot speak for themselves anymore,” she said.
Kuan then asked if Shen would resign and Shen said was prepared to resign and would not stay even if she was asked to.
Saying that she also thought it was inappropriate for her to be leading the ASC, Shen said that she was not consulted before the Executive Yuan announced it had appointed her.
Shen said that she is only one out of seven commissioners on the council who are compiling the investigative reports, and the findings of the investigation are not likely to be changed based on the opinion of only one commissioner.
Later in the afternoon, the Executive Yuan relieved Shen of her post after it learned that she had no intention of staying in the job.
Shen was not the first director-general of the CAA who was later appointed as the chairperson of the ASC.
According to the ASC, the ASC chairperson is a part-time position, for which the chairperson is paid up to NT$7,500 per month for attending three commissioners’ meetings.
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