FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA STATEMENT
10 APRIL 2015
As part of this week’s bill to allow for the setup of Malaysia’s Aviation Commission, the government has proposed to appoint an Internal Auditor as part of the Commission. However, the proposed role for the appointed auditor is left vague.
At the moment we are being audited constantly using international standards/monitoring body. For example the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia (DCA) are being audited too by ICAO.
I think what is more important is to make this yearly audit visible for public viewing. The delays in revealing the audit findings can be detrimental towards patching up weakness and loopholes in our aviation safety.
I myself had to wait for three years, across three different Ministers heading the Transport Ministry before I could get my hands on the Report on Power Outage at the Air Traffic Control Centre on 13 September 2012 – detailing reasons to why our airspace went blind for nearly two hours – leading authorities to:
surrender air authority to a foreign nation – Singapore – which provided us radio communications services to 3 movements, southbound for Singapore and beyond
delay affecting 5 flights both domestic and international carriers’.
forced to utilize non radar control procedures: where time used to separate planes can be up to 10 minutes (80Nm/145km) instead of the normal radar control of 5 Nautical Miles (9 km).
As the MH370 incident has shown us, there are still many weaknesses in Malaysia’s aviation safety. While commenting on the Interim Report on the case, CNN News anchor Richard Quest, has said that the biggest scandal in the MH370 case is the failure of the air traffic controllers in South East Asia including Malaysia to take action even though the radars has managed to pick up strange movements by the plane in the hours prior to the Search and Rescue is launched.
It is imperative that Malaysia begins to disclose these audit reports to the stakeholders including to the members of the public, as this would open up opportunities for the stakeholders to suggest ways and new technologies that is available to improve aviation safety.
As such, I demand the government to reveal audit findings by local and international bodies in a transparent and timely manner. Improvements would inch along if government keeps the “government-knows-best” stance. For this, I urge the government to set up a Parliamentary Select Committee on Civil Aviation Safety and Security. In dealing with safety issues, the public deserves to know that the government is working at its best to ensure the public’s lives are of the utmost importance.
NURUL IZZAH ANWAR
LEMBAH PANTAI MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
VICE PRESIDENT AND ELECTIONS DIRECTOR OF KEADILAN
