[Peetwo]

M99 inadequacy & the MH370 NOK anguish  -

Byron Bailey is back and continuing his criticism of the ATSB led SIO search, no surprises there I guess in the lead to the end of the search -

However Bailey did make some comments that were worthy of some circumspection, here is a couple of them (my bold):

..In other words, for two years the search area has been in the wrong location.

There are only two months left before the search is terminated...

..It must be tough going for the crews of the search vessels in those heavy seas and strong winds. Not for nothing are the latitudes south of 40 degrees known as the roaring forties. It is also distressing for the relatives of those who were on board MH370, some very disillusioned with the ATSB and the ­Malaysian authorities, as they have indicated to me...

 ..Who made this wrong decision..

.. Did it come down to the ATSB from above? Was it former deputy prime minister Warren Truss, under whose portfolio the search fell, or former prime minister Tony Abbott, ­desirous of cosying up to the ­Malaysian government and thus avoiding difficult questions..

..The ATSB has a somewhat chequered history.. - Massive understatement P2

..It has been criticised by pilots for its handling of the Norfolk ­Island Pel-Air Westwind ditching, where the pilot was hailed as a hero but then summarily “exe­cuted” by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the ATSB..
 P2 - Not just PelAir see here & here for ATR cover-up  

..Its rail accident investigations have been found by experts to be slow, overly lengthy and unable to establish cause, or the correct cause, and not demonstrating ­independence (see the paper Lessons from Australian Derailment Investigations by rail engineer Ross Mitchell and solicitor Adam Bisits presented to the International Heavy Haul Association, Perth, in June last year).. P2 - So the 'non-independence' carries through to the other areas of their remit   

 
However IMO the most relevant comment in the Bailey rant was this: 

..Why is this important? It concerns liability. Under the Montreal convention, payout for a death due to accident is about $200,000 but in the event of proven pilot suicide, which results in the murder of 238 innocent people and is therefore a criminal matter, the liability may be unlimited..

Again the Chicago & Montreal Convention (M99) surfaces as a possible significant issue in the bizarre shenanigans surrounding the whole tragic MH370 disappearance.

From Binger via the Oz yesterday:

Malaysia Airlines ‘insults’ MH370 families

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
• April 15, 2016 12:00AM
  
  

The family of two Australian passengers aboard the missing Flight MH370 has hit out at ­Malaysia Airlines, saying it has been demanding “ridiculous and incredibly insulting questions”, including where the plane crashed, in their compensation case.



Friends Bob and Cathy Lawton and Rodney and Mary Burrows were among 239 people on board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing that disappeared more than two years ago.

The couples’ adult children have lodged a claim in the Federal Court of Australia accusing the airline of not doing enough to prevent the Boeing 777 from flying off course and vanishing.


They are seeking more than $200,000 in compensation.


The children of the Burrows family hit out after the airline’s solicitors this week issued a 10-page letter with 53 questions ­requesting “further and better particulars” for their claim.


“Despite our best efforts to supply all of the requested information, the airline is distressing us further by asking ridiculous and incredibly insulting questions. We understand the court process allows them to ask for further particulars, but some of their questions are incredible, ­including asking us where the crash occurred and what caused the crash,” the Burrows family told The Australian.


“In our opinion, if it wasn’t for them losing their aircraft in the first place our parents would still be alive. Our parents were the victims, we fail to understand why Malaysia Airlines continue to request such information, only adding to the pain and ­confusion we have suffered …


“Although continually ass­ured by Malaysia Airlines that any claim would be straight­forward and handled quickly, this, like many statements made to us by the airline, has proven to be untrue.”


Families of the 239 passengers aboard the missing Boeing 777 had until March 8 — the two-year anniversary of MH370’s disappearance — to bring ­compensation claims against the airline.


The disappearance of MH370 falls under the Montreal Convention, which governs many air disaster claims and imposes strict liability on air carriers for injury and death caused by accidents.


Air carriers cannot defend claims assessed to be less than $190,000, but can fight higher claims if they can prove they were not the cause of the accident or that the accident was caused solely by some other party.


However, the disappearance of MH370 has made it impossible for the airline or authorities to determine the cause of the aircraft’s demise.


“Through our lawyers, we provided them with all the information they have requested, however, this was not enough,” the Burrows family said. “There was no attempt by Malaysia Airlines to settle this matter before the two year deadline for legal proceedings under the Montreal Convention, therefore, we have lodged a claim in the Australian courts. Making a claim in the court has only deepened our grief, and adds more stress.”

Which was followed by this from Joseph Wheeler:

Rights of passengers deserve more attention

• Joseph Wheeler
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
• April 15, 2016 12:00AM
  
  

Since 1944 the International Convention on Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) has served the needs of people worldwide for safe, regular and economical air transport in a market which presently serves over three billion passengers a year.



But this foundational convention, its annexes, and the law generally betray a perplexing lack of focus on or attention to people affected by aviation and in particular passengers — let alone their rights.


Who gives them a voice?


There is no global organisation that advocates for the rights of passengers as there are for other players in the air transport world like airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and pilots.


The significance of this startling lack of voice is an international regulatory sphere that is markedly slow to respond to genuine passenger/consumer needs and wants.


While a vocal focus on “safety” is prevalent, this does not always equate with suitably rigorous action to allay genuine fears and concerns of passengers, which should inform the law.


One need only look to recent decision-making by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on global airliner tracking to see how the concerns of passengers have taken a back seat, notwithstanding the refrain of “safety”.


On March 8, the second anniversary of the disappearance of MH370, ICAO announced that its 36-member council had adopted amendments to standards and recommended practices directed at preventing the loss of commercial aircraft experiencing distress in remote locations.


The rules will become applicable to all Chicago Convention states in 2021, and will require aircraft to carry tracking devices which can autonomously transmit location information at least once every minute in distress circumstances, have flight-recorded data recoverable and made available faster, and extend the duration of cockpit voice recordings to 25 hours from the existing two-hour recordings now retained.


These measures are designed to ensure that in the case of an accident, the location of the site will be known immediately to within six nautical miles, which facilitates more timely search and rescue and investigation of causes. It is relatively speedy regulatory work when one considers that it has only been two years since MH370 disappeared.


However, it was not that incident that prompted these changes, but recommendations made by the French BEA in 2009 after the loss of Air France flight 447. The net result is that these rules may well take nine to 12 years from the disappearance of a first full passenger aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean, followed by a second loss of a full passenger aircraft in the Indian Ocean, to legally regulate airline conduct worldwide. It is thus lamentable that the lessons highlighted by the BEA after the loss of Air France 447 weren’t implemented within the five years before Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in 2014, or that search may well have borne fruit and potentially saved lives.


All states and their regulators must act on the new amendments between now and 2021 to ensure these vital protections are implemented for the sake of all commercial air passengers.

  
Hmm...is there some fuzzy dots & dashes in there worthy of dot joining investigation? Remembering that ATSBeaker has a reputation for being the 'topcover' specialists - AIOS & the ATSB - The top-cover experts




MTF..P2