Saturday 7 February 2015

Flight MH370: A few clarifications on the notions of “accident”, “missing aircraft”, “liability” and their legal implications


The Malaysian government has officially declared the disappearance of flight MH370 an “accident” under Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention. It was reported that such statement aims at facilitating compensation of the families of victims. In law, it is not unusual to use the same terms with different meanings in different context. Such is the case of the term “accident” as used in accident and incident investigation, and in airline liability. The above Malaysian declaration causes confusion and raises questions.