After years’ persistent efforts, Aviation Safety Council (ASC) has been granted a new investigation act by the Legislative Yuan on May 11, 2004. Under this new act, ASC is empowered to investigate aircraft occurrences independently without the interference from other government organizations.

ASC was established pursuant to Chapter 8 of the Civil Aviation Act for the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) in 1998, and its Regulation for Aircraft Accident and Serious Incident Investigation was made pursuant to article 84. For the past six years, ASC has been through difficulties in conducting the investigation due to the lack of an independent act. The new act separates ASC from CAA’s Civil Aviation Act and gives ASC independent legal status to investigate occurrences with impartiality and objectivity.

The new investigation act clearly defines the job functions of ASC (including civil aircraft, public aircraft and ultralights’ occurrences investigation), the procedures of investigation, the process of publishing investigation reports (including tracking up the execution of safety recommendations), and penalties for those who not cooperating in the investigation.

There are five chapters, 38 articles in the Investigation Act.



Chapter 1 General

Chapter 2 The Procedures of Investigation

Chapter 3 The Publishing of Investigation Reports

Chapter 4 Penalties

Chapter 5 Supplemental Provisions



The Investigation Act will take effect after the date of promulgation. It is in Chinese currently, the English version will be available in September, 2004.