Brush, 24/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - On 24 March, the Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, paid homage to the victims of Germanwings Flight 9525, the date of the first anniversary of the tragedy.
The Commissioner said that “As hard as it may be, I would also like to tell them that this tragedy was not in vain”. She also explained that “Immediately after the crash, the European Aviation Safety Agency recommended airlines to have two people in the cockpit at all time”. The Commissioner also acknowledged the existence of many dysfunctions in the civil aviation field that needed to be tackled.
On 27 March 2015, two days after the tragedy, EASA issued a series of immediate, temporary and non-binding recommendations that included the “four eyes” rule, namely, the permanent presence of two people in the cockpit. At the time, this recommendation was criticised because it was thought that it could potentially create other risks in small cockpits, with only one place available at the command post (see EUROPE 11347).
On 6 May of 2015, the Commissioner set up a working group headed by EASA to examine initial crash data. A report followed on 17 July announcing six recommendations: the “four eyes” rule; more robust psychological assessments; random alcohol and drug testing; enhanced training for aero-medical examiners; a European aero-medical reference data and pilot support systems (see EUROPE 11362). In October, the Commission published an action plan for implementing the recommendations (see EUROPE 11414). More recently, in France, the Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA) has called on the European Commission to tackle the issue of medical secrecy, in an effort to strike the right balance between transparency and respect for patients' private lives.
On 7 December 2015, the Commission presented a strategy for aviation, which includes a thoroughgoing revision of the basic EU regulation on security. This move has provoked certain concerns in the airport sector, which has highlighted the risk of (see EUROPE 11411) increased security-related costs.
These concerns are particularly raw given the attacks at Brussels-National Airport on 22 March (see EUROPE 11517). An aviation security group of experts is expected to meet up on 31 March next in an effort to work out “proportionate” measures (see EUROPE 11518). On 24 March, the French Minister for Transport, Alain Vidalies, announced on the itélé news channel that no one would be able to enter French airports without ID or flight tickets. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)