Brannigan, Vincent --- "Paradigms Lost: Emergency Safety Regulation under Scientific and Technical Uncertainty" [2011] ELECD 915; in Alemanno, Alberto (ed), "Governing Disasters" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Governing Disasters

Editor(s): Alemanno, Alberto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857935724

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Paradigms Lost: Emergency Safety Regulation under Scientific and Technical Uncertainty

Author(s): Brannigan, Vincent

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

7. Paradigms lost: emergency safety
regulation under scientific and
technical uncertainty
Vincent Brannigan

7.1 INTRODUCTION: VOLCANIC ASH 2010
The 2010 shutdown of European airspace exposed critical failures in
corporate planning and the international safety regulatory process. After
25 years of work technical regulators had developed a widely publicized
regulatory response to a very predictable hazard. The official guidance
from the International Civil Aviation Organization was not to fly in
volcanic ash. Yet when the Icelandic eruption occurred, transport disloca-
tions and business pressure led to a rapid abandonment of the `no-fly'
safety regime in a few days. Rapidly approved, legally permitted levels of
ash were then trumpeted as `safe levels' by the various airlines. To date there
is little or no published scientific evidence justifying the claim of safety.
Some members of the airline community are even proposing a covert
approval process that would eliminate any public examination of future ash
safety evidence.
When society regulates a technology it interacts with the technology
developers to create a series of expectations and beliefs that can be
described as paradigm. The entire ash event is best understood in terms of a
paradigm shift in the technological frames used by the airspace safety
community. The volcanic ash crisis has important lessons to all those who
regulate in an environment of technological and scientific uncertainty. In a
`crisis management environment' well-connected parties can find that
exploiting technological uncertainty can be an effective method to circum-
vent both burdensome safety requirements and ...