The European Cockpit Association (ECA) called on the European Union on Tuesday 21 January to urgently find “pragmatic solutions” to prevent airliners from being shot down while flying to or over conflict zones.
For ECA, the recent crash of the Ukrainian Airlines plane in Iran following a missile strike is tragic proof that some lessons have not been learned from the downing in 2014 of Malaysia Airlines’ MH17 flight in the Donetsk region of Ukraine and that Europe does not have an effective system in place to prevent such accidents.
“We must in principle rely on our national authorities and our airlines to make sure that the lives of passengers and crew are adequately protected […] However, purely national, uncoordinated action has not done the job in the past and won’t do it in the future”, said ECA Secretary General Philip von Schöppenthau.
In his view, there is no doubt that Member States do not sufficiently share their security intelligence on conflict zones.
Furthermore, while the ECA is in favour of the creation of a European or international authority that would be responsible for the closure of hostile airspace, the association considers that we cannot wait until such an authority comes into being.
Therefore, the ECA proposes to establish, as a matter of urgency, an interim solution in the form of a “an industry-held database of current risk assessment outcomes and default procedures for any new armed conflict”.
The association considers that one could even imagine that, if at least two Member States and/or two major airlines decide to no longer fly over a conflict zone, this decision would be taken by all other States and all EU airlines until the situation is clarified. Such an option would require an effective exchange of information between all EU airlines and aviation authorities. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)