[Peetwo]

That man's book on MH370?? 

Via that man Higgins:

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Update: Via the Oz today.

Dick Smith urges small airfare levy to fund new MH370 search



Dick Smith. Picture: Jonathan Ng
ROBYN IRONSIDE
AVIATION WRITER
@ironsider

12:00AM FEBRUARY 27, 2019
11 COMMENTS
Veteran aviator Dick Smith has used the launch of a new book on the MH370 mystery to call for airlines to introduce a small levy on fares to raise money for another search.

Launching The Hunt for MH370 by The Australian’s Ean Higgins, Mr Smith said it was almost unbelievable that the Boeing 777-200ER remained missing almost five years after it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

There were 239 people on board the Malaysia Airlines flight, including six Australians, but all that has been found of the jet is a dozen or so pieces of debris.


Mr Smith said a levy of just 10c a fare could raise as much as $350 million towards a new ocean search, given 3.5 billion people travelled by air each year.

“I just simply can’t believe that the safety regulators around the world have said nothing about the need to find MH370,” he said.

“I’m not at all convinced we know what happened and because of that, it is imperative we find the aircraft and the black boxes so if it was a design fault (with the aircraft) we can fix it and save lives in the future.”

Mr Smith said if there had not been an extended search for Air France flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, information about why the plane crashed would remain unknown.

“They spent the extra money and found the flight data recorder which revealed one of the flight crew held the side stick controller in the stall position,” Mr Smith said.

“No one would’ve guessed that but now every pilot is taught not to do that.”

Higgins said all the families he had spoken to in the course of researching and writing his book were desperate to know what happened to their loved ones and deserved answers.

“I think it’s more a matter of will than money that’s lacking in renewing the search,” he said. “Boeing recently reported $US100 billion in sales and it could, as Airbus did for Air France 447, put up some money to fund a new hunt.

“So could, and so should, China whose nationals accounted for two-thirds of the passengers on the aircraft.”

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 293 airlines worldwide, was unable to support Mr Smith’s call for an airfare levy to fund a new MH370 search.

Assistant director of corporate communications Albert Tjoeng said there was already a well established process for accident investigation, included in Inter­national Civil Aviation Organ­isation’s annex 13.

“There is nothing in the ICAO annexes that would establish a precedent for the kind of funding mechanism being suggested, nor would IATA support such a mechanism,” Mr Tjoeng said.

Mr Smith said that without knowing what happened to MH370 there would always be some doubt about the safety of air travel. “This situation hasn’t occurred before and we have to change that for the confidence of the airline industry,” he said.

“Every passenger who flies now must be concerned.”