Air Accident Investigation

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Goddard of Stockport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the decision by the Air Accident Investigation Branch to retrieve the body of Emiliano Sala and to not retrieve the body of David Ibbotson following the plane crash over the English Channel on 21 January 2019; and what plans they have, if any, to ask the Air Accident Investigation Branch to reconsider its decision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, or AAIB, works independently of the Department for Transport, and in accordance with annexe 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. The sole objective of the AAIB investigation is the prevention of future accidents and incidents. In this case, once a body was found, the AAIB prioritised its recovery; it was only later identified as that of Emiliano Sala. The Government accept that no evidence of David Ibbotson’s body was found, and so no retrieval could occur.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer and for taking the time to speak to me before today to clarify the situation. However, leading on from that, what are the Government doing to crack down on grey charter flights, which is a growing problem in the air industry? They are unlicensed air taxis, which are used by footballers, celebrities and other people to bypass the system and get from A to B with a degree of privacy. It is a problem—they are unlicensed and unregulated, and we need to clamp down. One lesson comes from this unfortunate tragedy: we need to be more stringent regarding how people travel around in these unlicensed aircraft.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is completely right, and we share his concerns around grey charters. It is illegal to operate a commercial flight without an operating licence and an air operating certificate, which of course is overseen by the CAA. As a result of these concerns, the Department for Transport has commenced an independent review of the safety of general aviation, and one of the strands of work that is happening as part of that review is to look at illegal charters and consider what more steps we could be taking to prevent them.