EP Committee on Transport and Tourism has invited the Executive Director of EASA and European Commission representative, at EP in Brussels, for an exchange of views with MEPs, about the follow up to the Germanwings crash. Statements by Philippe CORNELIS, EC Representative, Marian-Jean MARINESCU (EPP, RO), Ismail ERTUG (S&D, DE), Roberts ZĪLE (ECR, LV), Izaskun BILBAO BARANDICA (ALDE, ES) and Patrick KY, Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)

Brussels

meeting

air transport package (T)

Committee on Transport and Tourism

BILBAO BARANDICA, Izaskun (Renew, ES)

ZĪLE, Roberts (ECR, LV)

ERTUG, Ismail (S&D, DE)

MARINESCU, Marian-Jean (EPP, RO)

European Aviation Safety Agency

KY, Patrick (FR)

air disaster (T)

Follow-up to the Germanwings crash: extracts from the exchange of views at the EP Committee on Transport and Tourism with the Executive Director of EASA and European Commission representative

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/18957455/I105693Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe CORNELIS, EC Representative, The deliberate actions of the co-pilot have broad to the floor two issues in particular: medical requirements , medical fitness of pilots, and access to the cockpit. Following on from the preliminary reports on the French safety investigators that was publish on the 6th of May , Commissioner Bulc asked the European Aviation safety Agency to establish a task force to look into these two issues. The cockpit door looking system, the access and exit procedures, and the criteria and procedures applied to medical monitoring of the medical monitoring of the co fitness of pilots.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marian-Jean MARINESCU (EPP, RO), How you think to make all your recommendations to be applied, to be mandatory? because there will be recommendations that the airlines will have to follow. So how to you think to implement all these recommendations.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ismail ERTUG (S&amp;D, DE), Would it not make sense to have regular standardised health checks on pilots?

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberts Z&#298;LE (ECR, LV), How we can reassure the public, and also the politicians that your recommendations will not perhaps cause another potential dangerous situation?

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Izaskun BILBAO BARANDICA (ALDE, ES), We must mention the rights of victims, family members and I under if anything have been done on this issue. I worry if we know what the situation is for family victims, whether they have been provided with support, or if they have been asked if they wish for such support.

SOUNDBITE (English), Patrick KY , Executive Director of EASA, By having a look at the security requirements for the cockpit doors we might have created some safety hazards, and vice versa. if we look at the cockpit doors just from a pure safety point of view and get read of the reinforced cockpit doors for instance it is certain that we are going to create security hazards. There are a lot of instances where in the big picture; we need to tackle security and safety issues together.

SOUNDBITE (English), Patrick KY, Executive Director of EASA, In Europe a pilot can freely take a licence in one country and be operational in another country. We need to make sure that we put in common, in a European manner, all the relevant medical information. This is not necessarily then case enough today, and we are certainly looking at it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Patrick KY, Executive Director of EASA, How can we make sure that the recommendations that we are making are going to be effectively applied in Europe, I'm not so sure that the legislation is necessarily the only means to do it. It's certainly one way to do it, but sometimes by creating legislation we create more problems than we solve. Sometimes we may need other types of measures such as relying on incentives, relying on the safety culture, which a think in which this committee is working on. I believe that we really need to find the rights tools in order to make it work.