Brussels, 29/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - Learning lessons from the two most recent serious aviation accidents in EU history, in Madrid in 2008 and the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the European Commission adopted a draft regulation on Thursday 29 October 2009 to increase the effectiveness and coherence of civil aviation safety investigations in order to ensure that aircraft safety investigations ensure a good return in terms of experience and learning to prevent such accidents happening again in the future.
The draft regulation foresees the creation of an EU network of authorities responsible for investigating civil aviation incidents, which would investigate along with the European Air Safety Agency (EASA) that is responsible for issuing permits for aircrafts in Europe. The draft regulation recommends the establishment of procedures to identity everyone on board within an hour of an accident being announced. The Member States will have to hold a safety investigation after every accident or serious incident (near-collision, system breakdown, incident on take-off and/or landing, events involving oxygen usage on board the aircraft, etc) that occurs in their airspace or country or involves aircraft registered in their country. These investigations should never be responsible for establishing responsibility or fault but rather to discover the technical reasons for the incident (the regulation does, however, include the option of coordinating judicial and safety investigations). An EASA representative will be entitled to participate in investigations carried out by the Member States' responsible authorities, to visit the accident location, examine the aircraft, suggest areas of enquiry and be provided with information. The national authorities responsible for the investigation will have the right to receive aid, free-of-charge where possible, from the authorities of other Member States. If they do not have the technological means or resources they require, they can delegate the holding of the investigation to the competent authorities of another Member State. The regulation also sets up an EU network of investigation authorities comprising the managers of the Member States' accident investigation authorities, or their representatives. The network shall coordinate and boost cooperation and exchange of information between the national authorities themselves and between the national authorities and the EASA. It may meet regularly with the European Commission to draw up an aviation safety work programme and lead, in time, to the pooling at EU level of resources and information (exchanging experts or technology, professional training, etc). The draft regulation also covers the provision of information to passengers. EU airlines and other airlines running flights from an EU airport will have to draw up procedures to produce a full list of people on board any aircraft within an hour of an accident or incident being announced. The list would be given to the safety investigation authority that is responsible for carrying out an investigation, to the body designated by the Member State in question to contact the families of the victims and also, where necessary, to medical teams. It would not be permitted for the list to be published until all the next of kin have been informed. Member States would, however, have the option of refusing to publish the list. (A.By. trans fl)