China is not qualified to participate in the International Transportation Safety Association (ITSA) Chairman’s Meeting in Taipei next year because of its failure to conduct independent investigations of transportation accidents, the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB) confirmed yesterday.
“Unlike the TTSB, China has never uploaded its investigation reports of transportation accidents online and allowed the public to critique it, nor has it translated investigation reports of aviation accidents into English and sent them to the International Civil Aviation Organization,” TTSB chairman Young Hong-tsu (楊宏智) said on the sidelines of a forum marking the board’s third anniversary.
“As such, China has never qualified to participate in the meetings over the years, and we have been free from interference from Beijing in participating in the meetings in the past two decades,” he said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Taiwan first hosted the annual meeting in Taipei in 2010 after Young participated in the event during his tenure as the executive director of the then-Aviation Safety Council from 2005 to 2009.
The council was upgraded to the TTSB following the derailment of a Puyuma Express train in Yilan County in 2018, which killed 18 people and injured more than 200.
Young was appointed as the first chairman of the board in 2019. While attending the ITSA meeting in Helsinki this year, he proposed holding the international event again in Taipei next year.
Accident investigation officials around the world are invited to attend, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Indonesia, Young said.
Russia was not able to attend this year’s ITSA meeting following Finland’s boycott over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Young said.
Whether Russia would be able to participate in next year’s meeting would depend on the government’s policy regarding this matter then, he added.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德) said in a speech at the forum yesterday that aside from investigating transportation accidents, the board should conduct periodic evaluations of railway and aviation service operators’ safety measures.
Young later told reporters that the board’s responsibility is to investigate transportation accidents, rather than evaluating transportation service providers.
“I think the vice president was inspired after hearing my presentation of what we have accomplished in the past three years. We need to prevent accidents from happening, but this requires cooperation from transportation service providers and government agencies overseeing them,” he said.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥) has signaled the ministry’s intention to work with the board to establish an evaluation system for highway service operators and the National Airborne Service Corps, Young said.
The board would examine the results before determining whether the same model could be replicated in other transportation services, he added.
Young urged the Executive Yuan to quickly approve a NT$1.76 billion (US$58.71 million) budget for a transportation safety research facility in Yilan County.
The facility will have branch offices in different regions across the nation to speed up the process of collecting evidence for investigation, he said.
Since the legislature passed the Space Development Act (太空發展法) last year, the board is also in charge of investigating spaceflight-related incidents and accidents, in addition to investigating railway, highway and waterway incidents and accidents, Young said.
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
Foreign travelers entering Taiwan on a short layover via Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport are receiving NT$600 gift vouchers from yesterday, the Tourism Administration said, adding that it hopes the incentive would boost tourism consumption at the airport. The program, which allows travelers holding non-Taiwan passports who enter the country during a layover of up to 24 hours to claim a voucher, aims to promote attractions at the airport, the agency said in a statement on Friday. To participate, travelers must sign up on the campaign Web site, the agency said. They can then present their passport and boarding pass for their connecting international
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
UNKNOWN TRAJECTORY: The storm could move in four possible directions, with the fourth option considered the most threatening to Taiwan, meteorologist Lin De-en said A soon-to-be-formed tropical storm east of the Philippines could begin affecting Taiwan on Wednesday next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. The storm, to be named Fung-wong (鳳凰), is forecast to approach Taiwan on Tuesday next week and could begin affecting the weather in Taiwan on Wednesday, CWA forecaster Huang En-hung (黃恩鴻) said, adding that its impact might be amplified by the combined effect with the northeast monsoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the system’s center was 2,800km southeast of Oluanbi (鵝鑾鼻). It was moving northwest at 18kph. Meteorologist Lin De-en (林得恩) on Facebook yesterday wrote that the would-be storm is surrounded by
RSS