EDITORIAL: Near miss convictions

A Supreme Court ruling has upheld the conviction of two air traffic controllers in connection with a 2001 near midair collision involving two airliners over Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture.

The controllers at the Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center wrongly ordered one of the aircraft to descend because they had mistaken the aircraft for a different flight. This caused the near-miss. They have been convicted of professional negligence resulting in injury and there is no doubt that, in the Supreme Court's words, the defendants "violated their professional obligations by committing an inappropriate act."

It is difficult, however, to judge whether the two can and should be held criminally liable. There was disagreement between the courts on this point.

The Tokyo District Court acknowledged that their instruction was an error, but acquitted them. The court pointed out that various factors contributed to the steep descent of the aircraft that caused many injuries among passengers. The Tokyo High Court overturned the lower court's ruling and supported the arguments made by prosecutors.

One of the five top court justices who heard that case wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing the defendants should be cleared. No air traffic controller intentionally causes an accident, but, like any human, they do make mistakes.

The key point is to try to set up sufficient safety procedures to prevent mistakes from leading to disaster. It is also vital to conduct an exhaustive investigation into any error that does occur, in order to identify the causes and raise safety standards. Such efforts are essential in areas like air traffic control, which rely on the smooth and correct operation of complicated systems involving many people.

Placing priority on pursuing criminal charges in cases of human error risks creating a situation where potential targets of prosecution put self-protection before other considerations. This could mean that data and information needed by investigators cannot be obtained.

In the United States, the principle of putting priority on efforts to clear up the causes of accidents and preventing similar errors in the future is firmly established. The country has developed legislation to deal with such cases and a system for investigation based on this principle.

Two months ago, then transport minister Seiji Maehara proposed a review of the current policy of putting priority on criminal investigation. The Supreme Court decision should not be allowed to derail reform.

The public needs to realize there are limits to the judicial system's ability to both uncover the facts about an accident and at the same time to mete out proper punishment to people who are responsible.

Recently, an error by an air traffic controller nearly caused a passenger jet to crash into mountains near Asahikawa Airport, Hokkaido.

The problem of how to respond to error within complex and sophisticated institutions is a challenge that also faces areas such as health care, science and technology.

It will probably not be easy to build broad social consensus on this issue, but accident victims also want to see the causes of errors identified and addressed and to prevent the recurrence of similar accidents.

It is time to go beyond the traditional approach to handling human errors. Steps should be taken to establish a cycle of investigation, explanation and improvement that does not arouse suspicion that experts are simply trying to dodge responsibility.

The Supreme Court decision should be a cue to start in-depth debate on this challenge.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 30