1 160128MH17 Vastgesteld 9 Maart 2016 Verbatim Report of The

1 160128MH17 VERSLAG VAN DRIE VIDEOCONFERENTIES Vastgesteld 9 maart 2016 Verbatim report of the videoconferences held by the standing committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, on Thursday 28 January 2016 in the Tilanuskamer room of the premises of the House of Representatives in The Hague. Start 18.00 hours. Chair: Mr Fred Teeven MP Present are the members of the House of Representatives Mr Han ten Broeke, Mr Harry van Bommel, Mr Pieter Omtzigt, Mr Michiel Servaes, Mr Sjoerd Sjoerdsma and Mr Fred Teeven, as well as Mr Theo van Toor, clerk of the standing committee on Foreign Affairs. 2 160128MH17 Videoconference 1 The expert heard is Mr David McMillan, (former) Chairman of the Task Force on Risks to Civil Aviation arising from Conflict Zones (TF RCZ), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) . The Chairman : [speaks Dutch] Welkom bij de videoconferenties. Deze zullen duren van 18.00 uur tot uiterlijk 21.00 uur vanavond. De videoconferenties zijn een vervolg op de rondetafelgesprekken van afgelopen vrijdag en dienen ter voorbereiding op het plenaire debat met het kabinet over het rapport van de Onderzoeksraad Voor Veiligheid over de ramp met de MH17 en over de kabinetsreactie hierop. Deze videoconferentieruimte heeft geen publieke tribune, maar de gesprekken worden live gestreamd via de website van de Tweede Kamer. Er zal ook een verslag van deze gesprekken worden gemaakt. Vanavond spreken wij achtereenvolgens met de heer David McMillan, voormalig Chairman Task Force on Risks to Civil Aviation arising from Conflict Zones van de International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Om 19.00 uur spreken wij met de heer Jo Sultana, Director Network Manager van Eurocontrol. Vanaf 20.00 zullen wij spreken met bestuursleden van de International Air Transport Association (IATA). Voor wie meeluistert: de gesprekken zullen vanavond worden gevoerd in het Engels. [continues in English] A warm welcome to you, Mr McMillan. You are joining us from Brighton in the United Kingdom. We appreciate it very much that you are taking the time to speak with Members of our Parliament about the report of the Dutch Safety Board on the MH17 crash and especially about the measures to prevent another disaster for civil aviation flying over conflict zones. Mr McMillan, may I now invite you to give a short introduction on your topic to the Members of our Parliament? Mr McMillan : Thank you very much. I am very happy to be able to help you in your work. It is obviously a very important subject for your country but indeed for civil aviation in general. 3 160128MH17 My role in this affair was to chair a task force on the risks to civil aviation arising from conflict zones. That was in the final quarter of 2014. I was invited by the then Secretary General of ICAO, Mr Benjamin, to make myself available. I was elected to lead the task force at the first meeting that year. I suppose you know how ICAO works. It was a group of interested nations who had things to say about the conflict zone problem. It was of course driven by the tragic loss of the MH17 over Ukraine. I think the view of ICAO, industry partners and a number of member states was that it had brought to the attention of the world a new set of threats and a new set of challenges for global civil aviation. The task force was composed of those countries most particularly concerned. Clearly, the Netherlands was an active participant in the work, as was Australia, a country also very deeply affected by the incident. We also had the major aviation nations: the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. But in particular we also had of course Ukraine and the Russian Federation. As you can imagine, this is a delicate task to go through. We had to be clear from the beginning that, although the work was initiated by this tragic loss, we were talking about a very general set of circumstances. What would the situation be and how would the world system cope with these new threats to be dealt with? In short, the group eventually took the view that the existing framework for managing international civil aviation is fit for the purpose and capable of rising to the new type of challenge and threat which we had seen. That means that states continue to have the responsibility to ensure the safety of operations in their sovereign airspace and in the airspace which is delegated to them by another country. It also means in particular that airspace users, airlines, have the ultimate responsibility to decide where they fly. So the first conclusion was that the system could be capable of dealing with these things, but there was also a very strong consensus that there was significant room for improvement in the system, to reinforce it, to enhance the operation of the civil aviation system in the face of these new challenges. In order to try and make those improvements and changes, the task force developed a work programme, which was to be passed on to ICAO to take forward and which was to be passed on to the member states of ICAO to take forward and which was to be passed on also to the industry -- the airlines, the air navigation service providers -- to take forward, as well as the regulators in each country. The objective of this work programme was to make sure that there were robust arrangements in place to identify, to assess and to share information about risks to civil aircraft from activities in conflict zones and also to respond to those risks. 4 160128MH17 Importantly, these arrangements should apply and relevant information should be available to ensure the safety of passengers and crew on civil aircraft, irrespective of which airline they are travelling on or which cities they are travelling to. Those are the broad conclusions. We can talk, if you would like, about some of the specific recommendations which were made. From my quick reading of the work of your investigation body and the recommendations which they have made and from the letter which your ministers have addressed to you I see a lot of similarities in the recommendations that were made about how to improve the situation, about how to ensure that airlines have adequate information on which to base risk assessments and about the need for those risk assessments to be conducted in a proper and robust manner. So there are many similarities, but there are one or two small differences of opinion as well. The Chairman : Thank you very much, Mr McMillan. I will now give the floor to the members of the House of Representatives to ask some short and precise questions. Mr Van Bommel (SP): Mr McMillan, thank you for joining us. You are one of the leading figures when it comes to safety in aviation and information about conflict zones. In April last year ICAO launched a website providing information about conflict zones for both airlines and travelers. This information is available to anyone. What is your assessment of the function of this website? As far as I can see, very little information is provided. I wonder if it is your impression that all information that is available has been handed over to the people in charge of this website. Mr McMillan : It is clear that the website is still a work in progress. It is good that the website has been established. I think it is potentially a very valuable tool in order to share information among the member states, with industry parties and indeed, to a certain extent, with the general public as well. It is clearly the case that not all information which is available has been placed on that website. I cannot say that my current activities include spending every minute of every day looking at the website, but it is clear that the information which is on the website is only a beginning of what is possible or what I would suggest is necessary. Let me give you a little background into why it might be difficult. There is more than one entity that can place information on the website. There is the state which has the misfortune of having a conflict taking place in its territory. I think some of those states are not very well organised and not very well equipped. Perhaps they do not see the 5 160128MH17 importance of putting information on the website. That is I think something which can be addressed by the United Nations Organization in one way or another. But please remember that some of these states have little authority over elements or parts of their territory and there are other organizations which have sway there. Those organizations are not normally of the type that put information on websites. The second group of people who can put information on websites are states which are not at stake with the conflict, but which have access to detailed information either derived from operational reports from aviation partners or derived through diplomatic channels, or thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, derived through intelligence channels. We discovered quite early on in the work of the task force that there is a great reluctance on the part of most states to share intelligence information with the general public and the industry. If they are going to do that, it seems likely that they will do it in a more private and confidential manner, rather than on a website. What the task force was asking, was not to have the intelligence information placed on the website, but the consequences which have been drawn from that information, so that these could be shared with all parties.

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