The Aviation Safety Council （ASC） held its annual press conference on Dec. 27, 2016.

The ASC Chairman Dr. Hwung-Hweng Hwung shared the experience on flight safety with media and provided the information regarding 2016 annual major task of ASC.

Chairman Hwung addressed, the ASC published two major occurrence investigation reports in the year 2016; GE222 and GE235. The conclusion of both reports pointed out the problems of flight crew complying with flight procedures. Chairman Hwung underlined that the major focus for the future would be for the flight crew to follow procedures, the education and training of flight crew, the organization and management of airlines and the oversight by Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Another matter warranting attention this year was two consecutive cases of battery burning while charging the cell phonne during flight. Although the two cases did not entail any casualty or damage of aircraft, its impact should never be ignored. Everybody has a mobile phone nowadays, any accidental burning of a cell phone during flight is definitely a potential risk to flight safety. Chairman Hwung requested ASC investigators to investigate meticulously and analyze carefully the key risk factors in the two occurrences; hopefully, recommendations for reducing flight risks could be found.

Chairman Hwung indicated prevention is absolutely far better than post-occurrence investigation. Over the years, the ASC, in addition to doing its routine jobs of conducting occurrence investigation, has also undertaken a tracking system of following up various recommendations for improvement of aviation safety, and started to establish an 'Aviation Casual Factor Analysis System'; key features of this system is the forward-looking ideas of preventing incident even before occurrence. For the year 2017, the ASC will certainly continue to do various relevant research on aviation safety; our hope is that input from ASC will contribute to the enhancement of aviation safety and the upgrading of quality of investigation reports.

Besides, the ASC has always been working for the cooperation between the industry, the government and the academics; for we believe that the effectiveness of investigation will be greatly ensured through pulling the resources together of the three sectors in a professional way. Chairman Hwung pointed out the most difficult area for ASC investigation of air disasters in waters, which usually involves sophisticated technology and vast amount of resources. The occurrence of few high profile aviation disasters in recent years only reminded us again of the difficulties involved. This is why the ASC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese Ocean and Underwater Technology Association on 26 April 2016. This will be a great help for the ASC in terms of the technology for underwater search and investigation in the sea.

Based upon the ASC analysis of the trend in aviation safety of 2016, the Taiwan civil aviation transportation category turbofan aircraft hull loss occurrence rate per million departures in the past ten years has, through our joint efforts, been reduced from 3.18 ten years ago to 0.58 in 2016; even lower than the global rate 0.7. Unfortunately, the turbine propeller aircraft hull loss occurrence rate per million departures for the past ten years has, due to the two major occurrences, increased from 0 to 3.09, much higher than the global rate of 1.76. Such result is not something to be pleased with. Chairman Hwung still has confidence, saying with confidence that this record will be greatly improved as long as the civil aviation industries work hard to pinpoint and correct the defects conscientiously.

Aviation safety is a matter of social concern, not the slightest discount or derogation is allowed. Chairman Hwung requested each and every staff in the ASC to conduct every investigation most cautiously and strictly, to follow the cutting edge knowledge all the time, and to cooperate closely with the civil aviation industries. Improvement of aviation safety and protection the lives and property of the general public will always be the top priority for the ASC.  

Sherry Liu, Engineer
Tel: 89127388-330
Email: sherry@asc.gov.tw