The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines has added its voice to the calls for governments to address the risks to civil aviation flying over conflicts, following the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 disaster last month.

Aviation organisations met at the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal (Canada) on 29 July and announced a special task force (see page one) and called on governments to curtail anti-aircraft weapons. The task force is to investigate what can be done to make civil aircraft safer from threats from conflict zones and report as soon as possible to a special ICAO meeting.

The anti-aircraft weapon demand is for countries to work through the United Nations to agree international laws regarding the design, manufacture and use of anti-aircraft weaponry. This is because ICAO members believe a surface-to-air missile brought down flight MH17.

AAPA director general, Andrew Herdman says: “There is already overwhelming evidence that the aircraft was brought down by an unprovoked attack.  Clearly this was the result of a military failure: failure to control access to powerful surface-to-air weapons, failure to design such systems to distinguish accurately between military and civilian targets.”