The Aviation Safety Council （ASC） held its annual press conference on Dec. 26, 2017.

The ASC Chairman Dr. Hwung-Hweng Hwung shared the experience on flight safety with media and provided the information regarding 2017 annual major tasks of ASC.

In the two years since Chairman Hwung was appointed Chairman of ASC, the ASC has completed a several investigations which drew public attentions. These investigation reports and concrete recommendations on flight safety have been highly regarded by the civil aviation industries, thereby prompting them to pay attention to the importance of following the standard operation procedures, refined and further training, and of upgrading safety management system. Among the cases of investigation by the ASC right now, 9 cases are still ongoing. As for the case of the Emerald Pacific Airlines occurrence which has attracted widespread attention, factual report was released on October 23, 2017, final investigation report is expected in mid-2018. 

As for flight safety in Taiwan, judging from the trend analysis of occurrences for the past decade （2007-2016）,Taiwan civil aviation transportation category turbofan aircraft hull loss occurrence rate has continued to decline yearly; but two cases of hull loss occurrence for the turbine propeller aircraft drove the occurrence rate higher. Besides, four and three occurrences happened to the general aviation in the years 2014 and 2015 respectively, accounting for almost 60 % of the recent occurrences. We believe that both turbine propeller and general aviation aircraft should be warned to be extra vigilant.  

Another problem emerging is the appearance of more and more unmanned aircraft, of which the impact upon flight safety and public safety should not be discounted. The ASC is now amending the Aviation Occurrence Investigation Act by consulting the relevant regulations in the international community in coordination with the forthcoming amendment of the Civil Aviation Law.

ASC has always been conducting research on topics relating to flight safety in addition to investigation tasks. Since occurrences have invariably been the result of often neglected unsafe acts; risks could have been reduced if only those unsafe acts had been detected and evaluated earlier. Since the very beginning of ASC almost twenty years ago, ASC has accumulated significant amount of experiences from its investigation of a number of occurrences. If those experiences together with information relevant to flight safety could be studied carefully in depth, this would be a significant contribution to flight safety. This is the reason why ASC colleagues have picked up topics important to flight safety for research every year before submitting concrete and feasible recommendations; hopefully occurrences could be prevented. For instance, investigation techniques in cases of aircraft veered off the runway, effectively improving risk management in cases of crew members fatigue, analysis and identification of construction failure model and strengthening the monitoring techniques of flight data, have all been included among the research topics for 2017. Findings of those research reports should be able to make concrete contributions to the enhancement of flight safety and quality of investigation here in Taiwan.

Transport safety has recently become a topic the whole nation is very much concerned with, and the establishment of a multi-module Transportation Safety Board has already become the current tendency of international community. Our neighbors such as Japan, Republic of Korea and Singapore have adapted this type of organization. Regardless of future developments, the ASC has always been cautious and serious in facing its duties of investigation and research, and yet persistent in its commitment to coordinate and cooperate closely with civil aviation authorities and civil aviation industries with a view to working together for a much improved aviation safety. 

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