By Kylie Bull
HSToday
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has welcomed the Dutch Safety Board’s final report on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed on July 17, 2014, in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine.
Known as an “Accident Investigation Final Report,” the document summarized findings and provided recommendations on the technical investigation conducted under the international requirements established by the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention.
It concluded the Boeing was “shot down over the eastern part of Ukraine, where an armed conflict broke out in April 2014,” killing all 298 people on board. In further detail, the report noted a Russian-made Buk missile hit the front left of the plane causing other parts to break off. The report does not say who fired the missile, but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed.
“ICAO and its member states responded rapidly in the aftermath of MH17 to address some important immediate concerns,” said ICAO’s Council President, Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu.
“Now that the Dutch Safety Board has issued its final report, ICAO will be reviewing its recommendations applicable to our organization and responding as needed to ensure that air transport continues to be the safest way to travel,” he continued, noting investigations under Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention are “directly related to improving flight safety, and not to the apportioning of liability or blame.”
In the weeks immediately following the MH17 incident, ICAO established a special task force on risks to civil aviation arising from conflict zones. The task force recommended ICAO should establish an online repository where states could share their conflict zone information more effectively, and where the public could also access it. ICAO launched the new online tool in April of this year.
Additional task force recommendations included advice on risk assessment terminology, a comprehensive review of existing requirements and message formats, and industry led-initiatives to share operational information and be more transparent with passengers. ICAO has also reportedly begun work on agreed contingency flight routings for conflict zones under its regional air navigation planning groups.
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