KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia aims to maintain zero fatal accidents in commercial aviation and achieve an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Effective Implementation score of at least 90% by December 2028 under its newly launched Malaysia Aviation Safety Plan 2026-2028.
The plan also seeks to reduce serious incidents and runway safety events while strengthening safety reporting across the aviation sector, said Transport secretary-general Datuk Seri Jana Santhiran Muniayan when launching the plan on behalf of Transport Minister Anthony Loke at the Malaysia Aviation Safety Seminar 2026 (MASS’26) here yesterday.
MASS’26 is organised by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM), with the United States Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing among its partners.
The three-year plan provides Malaysia with a focused national framework aligned with the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan and the Asia-Pacific Regional Aviation Safety Plan.
“Its objectives include maintaining zero fatal accidents in commercial aviation, achieving an ICAO Effective Implementation score of at least 90% by December 2028, reducing serious incidents and runway safety events, and strengthening safety reporting,” said Jana.
He added that increased safety reporting should not be interpreted as evidence that the aviation system was becoming less safe.
Instead, he said a healthy reporting culture would provide greater visibility of potential hazards and allow authorities and industry players to intervene before an occurrence escalated into an accident.
“People must be able to report safety concerns responsibly and with confidence that the information will be used to improve the system,” he said.
Meanwhile, CAAM CEO, Datuk Captain Norazman Mahmud, said aviation industry players must make safety personal and harness technology to prevent accidents and the loss of lives.
He said safety intelligence, including artificial intelligence (AI), could help the industry analyse vast amounts of data, records and audit materials to identify risks before they lead to accidents.
“Imagine going into a room full of files, records and audit materials. We don’t have time to do it. We need tools.
“Our aim, our target is actually to use the safety intelligence to prevent an accident like what happened two days ago. That is our aim,” he said at the event which took place just two days after a Bo-105 helicopter used for the Flying Doctor Service crashed at the Long Lellang STOLport in Sarawak, resulting in five fatalities.
Norazman said the roughly 500 participants at the seminar represented a vast pool of aviation knowledge and experience that could be turned into safety intelligence.
“We have about 500 people... about 5,000 years of experience, knowledge that we need to churn, we need to analyse, we need to use the intelligence gathered to prevent such an accident,” he said.
Norazman said MASS’26 was also aimed at strengthening the industry’s safety culture by reminding aviation professionals that safety was ultimately about protecting lives.
“This is the spirit of MASS. This is what we want to instil in all of you,” he said, adding that the combination of technology with the industry’s collective expertise could ultimately help aviation achieve zero fatalities.
“Yes, we can call it AI or whatever intelligence. But we hope one day, with the goal of zero fatalities, we will achieve it with what we’ve created with all the great minds here,” said Norazman.
