French BEA Joint Seminar for the MEDA Countries on Aviation Accident/Incident Investigation

During the seminar, 30 participants coming from eight MEDA countries - Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian authority, Syria and Tunisia - were briefed on the needs of safety investigations in aviation, on how to manage a crisis & a major investigation and how to deal with the media & the families. Participants expressed a strong interest in the various presentations and in the real case study. A large debate took place on the necessity of independent, effective and competent investigations in line with the provisions of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13 and the European directive 94/56 on the fundamental principles governing the investigation of civil aviation accidents and incidents. As a conclusion, MEDA Countries have been recommended:

To ascertain that a national team or body is in charge of aviation accident/incident investigation with sufficient resources, independence, autonomy and authority to conduct high level investigations.

To adopt and implement as soon as possible the ECCAIRS*2 system so as to ease the exchange of safety data between ICAO and States, and States themselves.

To develop regional and bi-lateral cooperation in the field of accident/incident investigation (regional group of experts, code of conduct and share of experience and best practices through annual regional workshops ).

This seminar will be followed by technical assistance delivered in 2009 by the Euromed Aviation Project in cooperation with the French BEA to help the countries to implement the above recommendations. *1-Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. *2-European Co-ordination Centre for Accident and Incident Reporting System