EU Incompetence Threatens Air Safety, International Air Engineers Warn
Air safety in Europe is threatened by European Transport Commission incompetence and the drive to make airlines profitable at the expense of safety, an international association of air engineers has warned.
In a press release issued to mark the 37th annual conference of the Air Engineers International (AEI) association, Secretary General Mr Fred Bruggeman said: “European air safety will continue to be compromised due to the European Transport Commissions failure to de-politicise the enforcement of its own regulations.”
According to Mr Bruggeman, the “arrogance of European politicians unwilling to take on board vital lessons will continue to pose a serious threat to air safety.”
The AEI, a body which promotes the interests of aircraft engineers worldwide, said that it remained “seriously concerned” about the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as well.
The EASA lacks “the legal power necessary to enforce its own regulations” and this has consequences on air safety, the statement continued.
“The AEI firmly believes that in order to prevent further regulatory abuse, EASA must have powers of enforcement independent of any political influence and most certainly independent of industry itself.
“Furthermore despite continuous calls from many aviation professionals for a truly independent occurrence reporting system, EASA continue to ignore the situation by claiming it is not within their remit,” Mr Bruggeman said, adding that paragraph 16 of EC Regulation 216/2008 regarding common rules in the field of civil aviation and the establishing of a European Aviation Safety Agency “suggests otherwise.”
The AEI said that the EU bodies simply “ignore” or “fail to properly investigate” many incidents which are reported to them, and renewed calls for the creation of a suitable channel for incident reporting.
Mr Bruggeman also expressed his concern that EASA “will be unable to withstand industry pressure to reduce training time and quality.
“The aviation industry is pushing hard for acceptance of distance learning for engineers in order to reduce training times and therefore increase engineer numbers quickly.
“Quantity before quality cannot be considered as acceptable in the aviation industry and AEI fundamentally oppose this overly commercial approach. Engineer training must be of the highest standard in order to maintain safety levels,” he said.
“The AEI values the continued cooperative atmosphere with EASA but remain extremely concerned that their efforts are being undermined by both nationalistic airworthiness authorities and ineffective political resolutions from Brussels.
“The AEI would also emphasize that it will continue to offer its full support to any initiative that enhances safety yet reserves the right to take any action deemed necessary in order to vigorously oppose uncontrolled commercialism which ultimately increases profit at the expense of safety,” Mr Bruggeman concluded.
