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Paris, 7 July 2004 "40 proposals to improve passenger airline safety"
Mrs. Odile Saugues, Chairwoman Mr. François-Michel Gonnot, Rapporteur
– Report summary –
1.- This report, the result of a fact-finding mission set up in January 2004 on passenger airline safety, presents in a first part an appraisal of air transport safety. In a context of highly dynamic air traffic – 1.7 billion passengers in 2003 –, the number of plane crashes remains relatively low compared with the growth in traffic, 58 accidents having left 621 dead in 2003. In effect air transport has been experiencing a growth rate since the 1960s higher than that of the world economy. From 1990 to 2003, the number of passengers increased on average by 2.7% per year and the number of flights by 2.8% per year. This growth, it should be emphasised, is far more pronounced in the European Union than in the United States. The number of passengers for instance increased on average by 5.5% per year in the European Union, compared with 1.8% in the United States. In 2003, this buoyant market transported 1.7 billion passengers worldwide, of which nearly 100 million passengers on French airlines. Air traffic is expected to continue to grow: 2.5 billion passengers are expected in 2015. This means of transport appears increasingly safe according to statistics, even if crashes regularly cause the tragic loss of human lives. A clear improvement has been seen in the safety of regular flights but charter flights are still something of a problem and some geographic areas have been identified as more dangerous than others. How can this situation be explained? The fact-finding mission report shows that the institutional and regulatory system establishing the civil aviation framework is insufficiently adapted to globalisation and air traffic growth. ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) is an organisation whose powers remain insufficient. It merely draws up minimal standards which are not binding and which must be transposed in the various countries. Their implementation is very unequal across the regions of the world: while Europe and North America apply the standards correctly and even exceed them, this is not the case in Asia, Latin America and above all Africa. ICAO launched an audit programme of civil aviation authorities which showed that 30 of the 111 countries audited do not sufficiently comply with these standards to ensure a sufficient level of control over the safety of aircraft and of airlines registered in their countries. Some countries do not have the funds or the political determination to ensure such a level of safety. Airlines are then tempted to use the international division of labour to obtain the most favourable conditions: aircrew can be domiciled in countries where social rules are more flexible and maintenance operations can be carried out in yet other countries where costs are lowest. The appearance of ‘virtual companies’ and of ‘flags of convenience’ can therefore be feared if ICAO does not rapidly address this issue. Europe, for its part, very soon launched a process to harmonise safety regulations, but this process still needs to be perfected. This harmonisation has been largely carried out across Europe with the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) and Eurocontrol, forty or so countries having accepted non-binding joint rules in many fields. ECAC adopted in particular in 1996 the SAFA programme (Safety assessment of foreign aircraft) for the inspection of aircraft from foreign countries, in an endeavour to compensate for insufficient inspections in some countries. But these approximately half hour ramp inspections are limited to visual inspection of aircraft or flight documents and cannot replace continuous technical supervision. Also this harmonisation has not prevented the persistence of weaknesses in some European countries. Mention can be made, for instance, of Greece – only a few weeks to go before the Olympic Games –, Portugal, Cyprus, Hungary, and even the former Republic of Macedonia. The ten new European Union Member States have swiftly raised the level of their inspection but are still the subject of specific oversight to make up for their lagging behind. For instance planes from the former Soviet Bloc are still in the process of certification. This harmonisation process should find expression in the Community legal order with the start-up since September 2003 of the European Air Safety Agency (EASA). The creation of EASA is a major step forward, even if Community air safety regulation has, since the outset, accompanied the liberalisation of air transport since 1987. In April 2004, the European Union took up the SAFA programme for the safety assessment of aircraft from third countries, improving it and making it mandatory. In each Member State the civil aviation authorities are tasked with implementing the European regulations. This responsibility is exercised in France by the Direction générale de l’aviation civile (DGAC – General Directorate for Civil Aviation). The report calls for an increase in DGAC funds assigned to oversight, with a functional separation between its regulatory and inspection activities. 2.- In a second part, the report calls for a raising of the reference system of the standards behind inspections. The level of technical reliability is admittedly high but must be constantly maintained. This safety level is indeed high in aircraft construction, but operation and maintenance are of highly differing quality between airlines and inspection countries. The fact-finding mission in particular noted the problem of spare parts whose traceability is not ensured and which are the subject of copies or of illegal trafficking (counterfeiting, recycled second-hand spares …). European air traffic must cope with an expected doubling in the next twenty years, a major challenge for the inspection organisations. The major risk of accidents arises in the management of airports, which will also have to face heavier environmental compliance constraints. Technical progress is constantly contributing new equipment helping to avoid collisions and the Single Sky European regulations implemented this year should allow joint management and flexible use of airspace between civil and military uses. But Eurocontrol notes a very unequal application of European standards, without accepting to name the countries implicated. Safety should be the subject of a continuous effort, particularly by action plans by the public authorities (‘JSSI’ in Europe and ‘CAST’ in the United States) and support for aeronautical research. The improvement of standards in the social field is also a requirement to improve air transport safety. Their insufficiency could lead to risks for aircrew qualification. While training is of high quality in France with respect to JAA standards, underlying difficulties remain, as well as sources of concern, particularly a risk of a lowering of the qualification of pilots as regards ICAO standards. European Union enlargement raises the question of the qualification of pilots from Eastern European countries. One subject, moreover, remains taboo: alcoholism and an addiction to illegal substances. Despite a theoretical ban, deviant behaviours can exist, which require the introduction of random inspections. Lastly, flight duration is not covered by any European Union regulation. French legislation appears favourable to aircrew, even if it can still be criticised. The air transport Europe therefore still remains to be built in order to avoid flight duration being a source of a challenging – through fatigue – of the qualifications of aircrew and a source of social dumping in the European Union. European MP Brian Simpson’s project (United Kingdom) represents, in this respect, an interesting step forward, but is still unacceptable as such. 3.- In a third part, the report calls for a strengthening of inspections and for more prevention. Inspections must be strengthened so that all countries provide a satisfactory level of safety in their territory. The European Union, for its part, must assume its role with the increasing power of the European Air Safety Agency (EASA), which will soon extend its powers to cover the operation of airlines and licenses for pilots; it will eventually also supervise air traffic management. But, above all, the European Union must establish strengthened inspection over aircraft and airlines of third countries. Following the example of the United States, it must strengthen its regulations to establish a permanent oversight procedure of third country airlines, drawing inspiration from Part 129 of the American federal code. Its role could also extend to inspecting in a targeted manner the civil aviation authorities of some countries whose airlines have regular lines to the European Union and for which serious doubts exist over their safety. In the event of an established breach of safety, Europe should reduce or suppress the traffic rights granted to these failing countries, within the framework of the bilateral agreements which are being renegotiated by the European Commission on behalf of the Member States. In this context, the granting of a special logo to third county airlines, recently proposed by the French government, meets a double objective of improving flight safety and strengthening passenger information. It therefore represents an undeniable improvement in transparency terms, but its contribution remains uncertain in safety terms owing to the difficulties which will not fail to arise during its implementation, particularly if an accident were to occur on an airline having received the logo. At world level, ICAO must affirm its role of supervising air safety worldwide by a permanent strengthening of international standards. But, above all, these standards should be better implemented in the various countries. The safety audit reports made by ICAO should be the subject of greater transparency and this organisation should think about setting in place a warning mechanism allowing its procedures to be strengthened in order to effectively apply its standards. At the same time, ICAO should strengthen the cooperation and assistance it grants to countries with insufficient means to ensure a satisfactory level of safety. A promising approach involves regional cooperation, several countries sharing their technical and supervisory resources. This way ASECNA (Agence pour la sécurité de la navigation aérienne en Afrique et à Madagascar – Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar), groups sixteen countries from French-speaking Africa. ICAO cooperation efforts should be seconded at the Community and French levels, even bearing in mind the current constraints on public funds. The strengthening of airline inspections cannot however suffice to improve air transport safety. Given the accident rate seen in 2003 – 0,03 on regular flights –, only a proactive prevention policy can reduce this rate in the future. For that purpose, an effective policy of experience feedback should be introduced along with the development of an air transport ‘safety culture’. Accidents and serious incidents form the visible part of the sources of a lack of safety in air transport. Accidents and the most serious incidents should therefore be analysed systematically and as quickly as possible to forestall further crashes. This goal requires increasing the resources of the Bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses (BEA - the official French organisation responsible for technical investigations of civil aviation accidents and incidents) and strengthening the role of DGAC, in coordination with its Community counterparts. The report is in particular in favour of the introduction of a third black box. Protected from damage, it will contain a video camera to film the instrument panel and its recordings would be analysed only in the event of an accident. The submerged part of the iceberg is made up of minor incidents still inadequately known. Yet, the reporting of these multiple events still comes up against obstacles of a cultural, economic and technical type, despite intricate regulations and exemplary experiences particularly at Airbus and Air France. Reporting obligations will therefore have to be extended in order to introduce a genuine culture in this respect. The Community Directive 2003/42 introduced a systematic and exhaustive reporting obligation of safety-related occurrences in air transport, constituting undeniable progress in this respect. Yet it must of course be implemented. 4.- In conclusion, the report presents forty proposals to improve air transport safety at all decisional levels – international, European and French. Q The report has been on-line in French on the National Assembly website since Friday 9 July : Rapport sur la sécurité des transports aériens / http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/securite_transports.asp ____________________________________________________________________________ © Assemblée nationale |
