Jordan Times
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Experts debate air safety measures
AMMAN (Agencies) — Aviation experts kicked off a conference Tuesday here aimed at raising the level of global air safety and security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and recurrent plane accidents.The event is co-hosted by the Jordanian and US transport ministries.
“Past and recent catastrophic and tragic incidents and accidents revealed serious loopholes in the fibre of aviation security and safety infrastructures,” Transport Minister Raed Abu Saud told the conference, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.
“Thousands of lives could have been saved, have we had sound preventive measures,” he said in a keynote address.
Abu Saud urged lawmakers, regulators and operators to work hand-in-hand to ensure that air safety schemes — such as the Universal Aviation Security Audit launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — are properly implemented.
“Lawmakers and legislators should ensure the development of proper and effective national legislation to help regulators carry out their responsibilities and therefore better guide and protect the operator.
“Operators cannot and should not be expected to provide safe and secure operations without a solid regulatory framework that is based on sound legislative perimeters,” he said.
He also insisted that “non-scheduled operators, mainly charter and seasonal ones,” should be ruled by “the same licensing, certification and operational requirements of scheduled operators.”
“Recent catastrophic accidents confirm this necessity,” he said.
The US embassy in Amman announced Sunday that the aim of the Jordan summit “is to increase regional cooperation in the areas of civil aviation safety and security.”
For his part, George Novak, a researcher of George Washington University, said that increased security at airports and on planes has reduced the chance of another Sept. 11-style attack.
“The possibility of using aircraft as a weapon has diminished since Sept. 11 because every country in the world is more conscious of the requirements of aviation security,” the aviation expert said, quoted by the Associated Press.
The director general of Jordan's Civil Aviation Authority, Hanna Najjar, told AFP that the conference was needed to bolster international and regional cooperation, describing the latter as being “at a low standard.”
“The bottom line is to ensure the safety and security of passengers” amid the fear-of-flying triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, which saw a slump in travel and prompted draconian security measures across the world.
“We want to make sure that passengers... go back to flying, trust aviation and at the same time with minimal discomfort” from security measures adopted by airports all over the globe, Najjar said.
The conference is run by the George Washington University Aviation Institute, which was mandated by the US federal aviation administration to organise air safety conferences after Sept. 11, bringing together members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
The conference falls in line with a US congressional mandate to increase dialogue on safety issues between aviation legislators, regulators and operators who have direct aviation links with the United States, an ICAO representative, Jalal Haidar, has told AFP.
Representatives from 16 Middle East and European countries were expected to attend the event, Haidar added.
The Amman conference comes as the United States has asked foreign airlines to place armed sky marshals on commercial flights deemed by Washington to be at risk, as part of the global war on terror, AFP said.