After two separate incidents of pilots failing alcohol tests in the past month, members of the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday proposed filing criminal charges against pilots who are found under the influence of alcohol.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清), Chao Cheng-yu (趙正宇) and Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said that pilots who drink alcohol directly before reporting for duty should face criminal charges.
Cheng said he found it ironic that the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) would list the punishment for lightweight-aircraft pilots in the Civil Aviation Act (民航法) if they were found to intend to operate the aircraft under the influence of alcohol.
However, the penalties for pilots operating large civilian aircraft for the same offense is stipulated in the Aircraft Flight Operation Regulations (飛航作業管理規則), which are lower in legal status compared with the act, he said.
The CAA should consider amending the Civil Aviation Act, because drunk drivers can be charged for endangering public safety, Cheng said.
According to the CAA, airlines on average randomly test about one-third of their pilots when they report for duty, and airport officials randomly test about 3 percent to 5 percent of pilots.
The CAA should subject all pilots to alcohol testing when they report for work, Cheng and Chao said.
Lin said that an airline is to face a fine between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 if one of its pilots fails an alcohol test, but the fine is too small.
The penalty should be 10 times more than that, he said.
CAA Director-General Lin Kuo-hsien (林國顯) said that pilots should not be under the influence of alcohol when they are on duty, including when they sign in, wait to get on an airplane, do preparatory work in the cockpit and fly an aircraft.
Airline ground crew and copilots should report if the captain is behaving strangely, as happened in a case in Canada recently, he said.
Lin said that the CAA is to meet with airline representatives within two weeks and will discuss proper ways to screen pilots for alcohol use.
Meanwhile, United Airlines’ forceful removal of a passenger from a US flight over his refusal to yield his seat was also the focus of the committee meeting.
Lawmakers said they were concerned that Taiwanese airlines might bump passengers off an overbooked flight in a similar way.
Lin said that no domestic airline has ever treated a passenger that way, adding that the CAA had only received three complaints related to overbooked flights.
Lin said that it is common for airlines to oversell flights to increase occupancy rates, particularly in peak travel seasons.
However, the CAA does not have data showing the number of seats that domestic airlines have oversold each year, he said.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
RSS