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LTFO
LTFO offcials collected passenger information for the purposes of the so-called ante
mortem investigation’ ⁹⁰ The LTFO used the passenger list that circulated on the internet
on Friday as the starting point. This list contained names, genders and seat numbers.
LTFO offcials and the police searched in their own police systems for information about
the passengers. On Friday, the LTFO received a passenger list from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, which was followed by a list supplemented with passenger information
by the Ministry later that day. As of Saturday 19 July, the LTFO also received versions of
lists containing passenger information via the NCC and the Royal Netherlands
Marechaussee. This information was compared to the information that the LTFO had
collected itself. Subsequently, the LTFO compiled the ante mortem fles. Based on these
fles, pairs of family liaison offcers would later be sent to visit relatives in order to provide
them information and collect additional information.⁹¹
On Friday morning, a team of family liaison offcers met for the frst time in Leusden.
However, it turned out that there was still insuffcient information available for them to
start their work. On Saturday morning, the family liaison offcers met again. Each pair
received a number of ante mortem fles from the coordinator of the LTFO. At that moment,
not all of these fles appeared to be complete enough to inform and visit relatives. For
example, the names and addresses of relatives and the relationships between them still
needed to be fgured out.⁹² It was then not decided yet who should carry out this task.
Instead, the family liaison offcers did this themselves using the search systems.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs used various sources to collect information about victims
and their link to relatives. The most important sources were the passenger lists of
Malaysia Airlines that were sent to the Ministry directly via Kuala Lumpur or via the NCC
and the information that relatives supplied by calling the information number of the
Ministry. In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday received data from
Eurocross⁹³ and the ANVR.⁹⁴ Given the moment the Ministry received these data, they
had little added value for the Ministry. At that moment, the Ministry had already handed
over its list to the police. The information was mainly used to compare the data with the
Ministry’s list.⁹⁵

⁹⁰ In this process, as much information as possible is collected about the missing persons. The information is
subsequently compared with the victims’ human remains. If there is a match, this is considered identifcation.
⁹¹ Relatives are interviewed so as to obtain as much detailed information as possible about the missing persons. If
necessary, DNA material may also be collected from family members in order to later compare this to the DNA of
the human remains.
⁹² If this is not done carefully, there is a risk of several liaison offcers visiting (different) family members of the same
victim or a risk of relatives being informed about different victims in their family at different times.
⁹³ The emergency centre registered the information supplied by relatives who called the Eurocross emergency
number and submitted it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday 19 July.
⁹⁴ The ANVR informed all of its members about the MH17 crash via a news email. The members were also asked to
communicate the number of passengers, that had booked a ticket for this flight with them, to the ANVR, so that a
single overview could be compiled of the travellers that had booked flight MH17 via ANVR travel agencies and
tour operators. On Friday 18 July, there was contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the request of the
ministry, the ANVR asked the travel organisations to provide information about passengers who had booked with
them directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is unknown how many travel organisations actually did so.
⁹⁵ The Ministry of Foreign Affairs used its own Kompas crisis registration system to compile a victim information list.
That system contained a list of registered affected persons (victims) and a list of the details of relatives (the ones
who called). The SIS was not used. Use of this system would have been possible, as the National Operational
Coordination Centre (Landelijk Operationeel Coördinatiecentrum) notifed to the NCC.

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The operational process of collecting, distributing and verifying information about
passengers and relatives was uncoordinated and ineffcient on the part of the Dutch
authorities. Various authorities compiled their own lists for various objectives containing
information about victims and relatives. These authorities were virtually unaware of each
other’s activities.
The passenger lists that Malaysia Airlines submitted were not received at one central
place and distributed from there to all parties involved. Several authorities at and around
Schiphol within three hours from the moment the crash became known got hold of a
passenger list containing many of the passengers’ nationalities. At the national level, the
NCC and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a similar list with nationalities no sooner
than the night from Thursday to Friday.
The information exchange between private and public parties as well as between national
authorities and those at and around Schiphol was unstructured. There was no central
place where the available information was combined and verifed. As a result there was
never one current ‘authoritative’ passenger list on the basis of which all parties could
extract information from. Consequently parties did duplicate work. The fact that the
national authorities did not allow active input from Malaysia Airlines created delays as
well as irritation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was responsible, at the national level, for processing the
consular tasks that stemmed from the crash of flight MH17. For this reason, the Ministry
collected information about the victims and relatives so that relatives could be informed
about the fate of their loved ones. However, the Ministry lacked an overview of other
parties that were somehow involved in collecting, distributing and verifying information.
The Ministry worked with the parties that the Ministry was used to working with, among
others based on previous major incidents abroad. Some parties that collected or
possessed information for other reasons (such as the criminal investigation) and parties
that had access to systems with which information could be supplemented and verifed
were not involved in the Ministry’s process. Due to this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
did not use all of the information that was available via other channels.
On the night of the crash, it became clear within the national crisis structure that it was
diffcult to acquire the passenger list. This would have been the best point in time for the
MCCb to decide on a coherent approach to the overall process regarding the passenger
information. In the days following the crash, it became clear to the NCC, which was
preparing the interdepartmental decision-making process (among other things), that
several parties (in the region, at Schiphol, and at the national level) were compiling lists.
The NCC could have brought this to the attention of the ICCb, so that this committee
would have been able to advice the MCCb on measures to better coordinate the parties’
activities and to share information with each other. However, the issue was not discussed
by the committees. Due to this, the situation remained unchanged and the parties
continued their work without communicating with each other.

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Relatives were asked to provide the same details numerous times by various parties. In
addition to the unnecessary emotional stress caused to the relatives, this state of affairs
also led to confusion during the frst few days about which organisation possessed the
correct information and hence was the right point of contact for the relatives.
On Saturday 19 July, Malaysia Airlines published the passenger list with the passengers’
nationalities at 13.30CET (11.30 UTC). At that time, the Dutch authorities had not yet
offcially informed the relatives of Dutch victims of the fact that their loved ones were on
board the aeroplane. Furthermore, Malaysia Airlines had also not yet contacted all of the
relatives at that point in time.⁹⁸
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and/or the central government, strove initially to ensure
that the list of victims and their relatives would be complete before handing over the list
to the police so that the relatives could be informed. The same approach was adopted
by the LTFO, that also strove to ensure completeness of the fles (names, addresses and
family connections) before informing the relatives.
Ultimately, this principle was abandoned and the authorities started informing relatives
despite the fact that the information was not complete for all passengers. Furthermore,
the central government decided not to make any announcements via the information
number of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with regard to the names that were on the
passenger list.
Family liaison offcers
From Saturday afternoon onward, family liaison offcers from the National Police sought
contact with the frst relatives whose details were known to the police⁹⁹ and informed
them offcially - on behalf of the central government - about the fate of their loved ones.
In most cases, the family liaison offcers made a personal visit to the homes of the
relatives. From Sunday on, a number of relatives were informed by telephone frst. It was
decided to contact them by telephone as otherwise it would not have been possible to
inform all of the relatives prior to the relatives’ meeting on Monday 21 July in Nieuwegein.
In spite of this, it was not possible to completely rule out the eventuality that the meeting
would be attended by relatives who had not been informed by the authorities in any way
at all.
Finally, it is important to note in this context that the media started to distribute
information about possible victims within hours of the reports of the crash of flight MH17.
This information came from a variety of sources, including social media.¹⁰⁰ During the
night from Thursday to Friday, a passenger list already circulated on the internet, even
though Malaysia Airlines had not yet published it. In addition, during the frst few days
after the crash, the media distributed information about the subsequent procedure, for

⁹⁸ At that time, Malaysia Airlines had informed all relatives who had contacted the airline. After the passenger list was
made public, other relatives also contacted the airline, after which they too could be informed and be offered
support.
⁹⁹ Not all of the relatives of victims were approached by the family liaison offcers. The police contacted the relatives
of victims who were known to them.
¹⁰⁰ For example, via images of the crash site, via the Facebook pages of passengers and their friends, and via
journalists.

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this information is available. This means that consideration must be given to whether the
relatives of individual victims can start to be informed even if the information is not yet
complete for all passengers. The Board is of the opinion that, given the speed at which
information is able to circulate through modern media, a review of the basic principles is
appropriate, without compromising the authorities’ reliability. Relatives declared to the
Dutch Safety Board that it was emotionally stressful being confronted with information
via the media which had not yet been provided to them via the offcial channels.
Finally, the Board fnds that the coordination between Malaysia Airlines and the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs about the time of providing information to the relatives was far from
optimal. In the crisis meeting of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DCC), it was agreed that
the fnal passenger list would be published when all of the relatives had been informed.
However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Malaysia Airlines didn’t make agreements
regarding how and when they would inform the relatives about the victims of the crash of
flight MH17. This topic was discussed in the ICCb on Friday morning, and it was decided
that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would contact Malaysia Airlines in this respect. The
Ministry did not pursue this action.

4.8 Relatives’ perceptions
4.8.1 Findings
Immediately after the crash, many relatives were almost completely certain that their
loved ones were on board the aeroplane. They had a pressing need for offcial
confrmation from the Dutch authorities as to whether or not their loved ones were on
board. They felt that there was a lack of direct contact with the authorities during the frst
few days.
It was not clear to the relatives which organisation they should (best) approach with their
questions. Malaysia Airlines in the Netherlands or in Kuala Lumpur, the travel organisation,
Schiphol, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or some other party? They approached various

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4.8.2 Analysis
The relatives experienced the lack of coordinated information provision during the frst
few days after the crash of flight MH17 as emotionally stressful. Even though various
information numbers were opened, none of the possible sources was able to provide the
information the relatives needed. There was no clear communication with relatives about
the purpose of the information numbers, as demonstrated by the press conference held
by Malaysia Airlines on the evening of Thursday 17 July, when it was stated that the
emergency number of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was to be used for information
services. As a result, it was not clear that this number (provided by the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs) was only intended to collect information about possible victims and their relatives
(in the context of the registration process) and not to provide information about the
names of (potential) victims to relatives.
Because relatives could not easily get in touch with Malaysia Airlines and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, due to the fact that the telephone lines were overloaded and became
blocked, they also contacted other organisations. These were equally incapable of
answering their questions. Many relatives did, however, leave their details with those
organisations. It was not clear whether the different organisations would share those
details with each other. It was unclear to the relatives which organisation was in possession
of the correct information and was the point of contact.
The questions of relatives remained mainly unanswered until contact was established
with the family liaison offcers who were deployed by the National Police in order to
inform the relatives. As a result of the efforts of the family liaison offcers, the relatives
received information about the victims and the process that would follow. This resulted
in the communication with the authorities that the relatives had desperately needed
during the preceding few days.

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The main conclusion is divided into the following conclusions.

The airline has the duty to supply a list containing the best possible passenger information
to the appropriate authorities within two hours. What is meant by ‘best possible’ is not
set down in any regulations. After the crash of flight MH17, Malaysia Airlines provided the
Dutch authorities with information as soon as the opportunity arose. This was during the
frst meeting of the Committee of Consultation at Schiphol, where Malaysia Airlines
handed over the passenger list of flight MH17 as it was also present on board the
aeroplane. On this list were the names, genders and seat numbers of the passengers.
The information contained in the passenger list was insuffcient to determine which
passengers were from the Netherlands. The information required for this purpose, such
as information about nationalities, could not immediately be retrieved from the computer
systems. Starting from about fve hours after the crash, this was possible and Malaysia
Airlines could issue this information for most passengers. The complete passenger list
was available on Saturday 19 July. This took time because Malaysia Airlines did not record
the nationality of all passengers (despite the fact that an internal procedure required this)
and other passport information. This is not required under international regulations. Such
a registration obligation only applies when a passenger travels to a country with an API
obligation.¹⁰⁴
In addition, only the information required for handling the flight ends up in the computer
system that the airline uses for compiling the passenger list. This is standard practice in
the aviation sector. Part of the data that passengers provide prior to a flight, such as
contact details of relatives, remain in the different booking and reservation systems of
travel organisations and airlines. As a result, these data are not immediately available at
the time of an aircraft accident.
In practice, it is not possible to meet the society’s expectation that it will be clear who
are on board the aeroplane at the push of a button. The frst passenger list to be
delivered will generally not be complete nor reliable enough to provide relatives with a
defnitive answer about whether or not their loved ones were on the flight.

¹⁰⁴ Certain countries have made the registration and supply of additional data on incoming passengers via Advance
Passenger Information mandatory for airlines. See Section 3.2 in this report for an explanation.

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such as Malaysia Airlines and the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee. This attitude was not
conducive to general cooperation. The Board is of the opinion that the Ministry, because
of its priority task in this disaster, should have taken note of the activities of other parties
and should have put these to good use.
Parties did not make any use of the existing victim information system (SIS) by which the
available information could be gathered in one place. This system was developed in
response to, among other things, the problems pertaining to victim registration after the
crash of the Turkish Airlines aeroplane in 2009. The use of the SIS could have facilitated
the cooperation and information sharing among the parties and thus improve the
effciency of the overall process.
Although various parties noticed that obtaining passenger information was a diffcult
process and that information was being collected by several parties, nobody assumed
responsibility for coordinating the activities. It is the Board’s opinion that the NCTV
should have taken the lead here. The national crisis structure in the Netherlands provides
for a crisis centre, namely the NCC (part of the NCTV), which must be able to get a total
overview of the parties involved during a crisis, including what they are doing and what
information they have. It is the NCC’s duty to connect these parties in order to make
working arrangements. At one point, the NCC was in touch with all authorities and with
the airline and was aware that work was being carried out on lists in multiple places.
Nevertheless, this did not result in the NCC taking over the coordination and bringing
the relevant parties in contact with each other.

Both Malaysia Airlines and the Dutch authorities notifed relatives that their loved ones
were on flight MH17, but they did not coordinate the time when they passed on this
information. Malaysia Airlines contacted relatives from the day after the crash and
published the full passenger list on 19 July. At that stage, the Dutch authorities had not
yet informed the victims’ relatives. The decision of Malaysia Airlines to publish the list of
passengers while the Dutch authorities were not yet ready is understandable given the
context in which this happened.
Appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, family liaison offcers of the National Police
provided the formal confrmation from the authorities to the relatives. It took two to four
days after the crash before the message was passed on to the relatives by the family
liaison offcers. The authorities initially wanted to wait until a complete and verifed list of

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6 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Board’s investigation has brought several points to light with regard to improving
and accelerating the process of informing relatives. To this end, the Board fnds the
following matters to be important:
• keeping records on nationality;
• improving the process of collecting, distributing and verifying passenger information
and improving the provision of information to victims’ relatives, and
• simplifying the Dutch crisis organisation.
Keeping records on nationality
In the Board’s opinion, in future the nationalities of the passengers should be available
on the passenger list that is drawn up by the airline. This relatively simple procedure
would make it easier to register victims of aircraft accidents and to trace and inform their
relatives. The Board considers it excessive to require all airlines to, for example, register
the passport numbers of passengers and the details of contact persons at home, as the
benefts - given the small chance of an accident - do not outweigh the extra effort that
this would require. In the opinion of the Board, a passenger list that includes the
nationalities of all passengers and a smoothly functioning crisis organisation, would
provide suffcient guidance after an aircraft accident to retrieve information about victims
and their families more quickly. The Board therefore recommends the following:
To the Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment:
1. Take initiatives at international level to incorporate the registration of the
nationality of airline passengers in international regulations. In the meantime,
encourage airlines to record the nationality of each passenger travelling to or
from a Dutch airport before departure, in the systems that provide passenger
information in case of an accident.
Improving the process of collecting, distributing and verifying passenger
information and improving the provision of information to relatives.
In the opinion of the Board, the NCTV should have managed the overall process in order
to improve its effciency. The Board feels that a clear management role is required to
ensure that the activities of individual parties are coordinated, and that information is
shared as well as collected and managed in one place. Nonetheless, other parties
involved, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have a specifc task within that process
and need to contribute, in the context of that task, to the coordination of the process.
Taking that into consideration, the Board makes the following recommendation:

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APPENDIx A
INVESTIGATION PARTICIPANTS
A.1 Guidance committee
The Dutch Safety Board established an Guidance committee for this investigation. This
committee consisted of external members possessing expertise relevant to the
investigation and extraordinary councillors, under the chairmanship of one of the Board
members of the Dutch Safety Board. The external members had a seat in the Guidance
committee in a private capacity. During the investigation, the Guidance committee met
four times to exchange thoughts with the chairman of the committee and the project
team regarding the structure and results of the investigation. The committee performed
an advisory role in the investigation. Final responsibility for the report and the
recommendations lies with the Dutch Safety Board.

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APPENDIx B
REVIEW
In accordance with the Kingdom Act Dutch Safety Board (Rijkswet Onderzoeksraad voor
veiligheid), a draft version of this report was submitted to the parties involved. These
parties were asked to check the report for factual errors and ambiguities. The draft
version of this report was submitted to:
• Malaysia Airlines;
• Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (Schiphol Group);
• Municipality of Haarlemmermeer;
• Kennemerland Safety Region;
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
• Ministry of Security and Justice;
• Ministry of Defence;
• National Police.
The responses after inspection were processed in the following manner:
• Corrections of factual inaccuracies, additions at the detail level and editorial
commentary have been taken over by the Board (where relevant). The corresponding
parts of the text have been amended in the fnal report. These comments are not
listed separately.
• If the Dutch Safety Board has not taken over certain comments, the Board has
explained its decision not to do so. These comments and the explanation are included
in a table that, along with the publication of the investigation report, has been
published on the website of the Dutch Safety Board (wwwsafetyboard.nl).

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C.3 Committee of Consultation
At Schiphol, the Committee of Consultation forms the internal crisis organisation.¹⁰⁹ The
committee’s composition depends on the nature and scope of the calamity or disruption.
The Airport Manager, Airside Operations Manager and Operations Manager Passengers
have fxed seats on the Committee of Consultation. In addition, other offcials may also be
part of the committee, such as Schiphol’s public relations offcial and a representative of
the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer, of Air Traffc Control the Netherlands (Luchtverkeersleiding Nederland) or of the company involved (the airline, for example). If needed, the
Committee of Consultation can be expanded to include other experts as well as private
parties. The Committee of Consultation convenes when the routine operational processes
at Schiphol are disturbed by a calamity. The committee is primarily concerned with the
restarting and continuity of the primary processes and orderly operations and safety at
Schiphol. If the regional crisis organisation scales up, the Committee of Consultation
functions within it as the airport’s action centre. If Schiphol is involved in an accident or
disaster,¹¹⁰ the Committee of Consultation must provide aeroplane data to the Operations
Team according to a format (including the number of passengers and crew members). The
airline must make a passenger list available to the mayor within two hours after the
accident, via the committee.¹¹¹
C.4 Municipality of Haarlemmermeer / Kennemerland Safety Region
The mayor and aldermen are responsible for organising disaster response and crisis
management at the regional level. The execution thereof is assigned to the safety region.
The municipality’s tasks within the safety region in case of aviation-related incidents at
Schiphol are specifed in the Population Management Sub-plan.
C.5 Operations Team
An (regional) Operations Team is one of the units of the main structure of disaster
response and crisis management. The Operations Team is charged with the operational
management, coordinating with other parties involved in the disaster or crisis, and
advising the municipal or regional policy team if present. The Operations Team is a
multidisciplinary group and consists of representatives from the fre brigade, the medical
emergency services for accidents and disasters, the police, and the municipality. The
Operations Team is led by the operational leader, who also participates in the policy
team. Other experts and/or private parties may also participate at the invitation of the
operational leader, such as the NCC’s liaison.

¹⁰⁹ Kennemerland Safety Region, Schiphol Crisis Response Plan, December 2013.
¹¹⁰ For example, if an aeroplane crashed at Schiphol or if an aeroplane that departed from or was heading to Schiphol
was involved in an accident.
¹¹¹ See appendix D5.

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APPENDIx D
FRAME OF REFERENCE
The Dutch Safety Board uses a frame of reference when assessing an incident or a series
of incidents. The frame of reference that was used for the investigation into the availability
of passenger information pertaining to flight MH17 is composed of four parts. The frst
part of the frame of reference describes what could, in the opinion of the Board, be
expected from the involved parties, as a supplement to the other parts of the frame of
reference. The second part discusses international legislation and regulations that apply
to the registration and exchange of passenger details and assistance to victims and
relatives. The third part discusses the internal guidelines and plans of Malaysia Airlines.
The fourth part of the frame of reference describes the agreements that have been made
in the Netherlands about the role that Dutch parties fulfl in the event of a national crisis,
in particular with regard to an aircraft accident abroad involving Dutch victims.
D.1 The Dutch Safety Board’s frame of reference
Partly based on the above, the Board expects airlines to register, as accurately as
possible, which passengers and crew members are on a flight, thus ensuring that an
accurate list of all persons on board of the aeroplane will be available as quickly as
possible in the event of an accident. The Board is of the opinion that the information
provided by an airline following an aircraft accident should provide starting points to
inform relatives about the presence of their loved ones on board the aircraft quickly. This
means that, in addition to their names and initials, the information should also include at
least the nationality of those on board.¹¹² The more complete the list, the quicker there
will be clarity regarding the victims and their relatives.
The Board considers it important that it is not just the airline that informs relatives, but that
relatives also receive a formal confrmation from the authorities about whether or not their
loved ones were actually on the aeroplane.¹¹³ The Dutch authorities are in charge of
informing relatives of Dutch passengers in this regard. The Board expects the Dutch
authorities to be prepared for the scenario in which an aeroplane with many Dutch nationals
on board is involved in a crash abroad and that, in its preparations, consideration has gone
into how all the parties involved should work together in such a situation in order to inform
relatives quickly. In fact, such a scenario is not unthinkable. A large-scale accident occurred
in Tripoli in 2010, for example. Seventy Dutch nationals lost their lives in that crash.

¹¹² Whether the obligation to register a passenger’s nationality applies depends on the destination of the passenger.
¹¹³ The authorities must issue a formal statement of death to a victim’s relatives after a fatality has been identifed.
Prior to this, the Board believes, it is important that relatives are informed by the authorities as soon as possible
whether their loved ones were actually on board of the aircraft.

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an agency of the United Nations, and is set down in the Convention on International Civil
Aviation, usually referred to as the Chicago Convention,¹¹⁶ and the Annexes to this
Convention. The European framework consists of directives and regulations of the
European Union or the European Commission. In this section, the relevant parts of
international legislation, regulations, directives, standards and recommended practices
for this investigation are discussed.
D.2.1 ICAO
Nearly all nations have signed the Chicago Convention.¹¹⁷ The convention forms the basis
of the international regulations with regard to civil aviation and includes provisions that
are important for the development of international civil aviation. Nineteen Annexes have
been added to the Convention, in which varying topics are further set down in standards
and recommended practices. The member states must implement the standards as
closely as possible in their national regulations.¹¹⁸ If a standard is not followed or a
standard is not included in national regulations, this must be reported to ICAO.¹¹⁹
Member states do not have to include the recommended practices in their national
legislation. In addition, ICAO also makes other documents available, such as manuals
and guidelines that provide guidance for the implementation of the standards and
recommended practices.
Provision of passenger information
Article 29 of the Chicago Convention sets down that an airline must have a list containing
passenger names and the locations of departure and destination on board the aircraft if
it transports passengers.¹²⁰ Annex 9¹²¹ of the Convention has the objective of contributing
to an effcient course of cross-border air traffc and describes, among other things, the
measures that must be taken to ensure that border control can assess the aeroplane, the
persons and the cargo correctly without interfering with other air traffc. Standard 2.13 of
Annex 9 states that, if a passenger manifest (passenger list) is required by a member
state, this passenger list must only consist of the elements specifed in Appendix 2.
Appendix 2 contains a format for a passenger list. The following elements are mentioned
in the format: the operator, nationality and the registration (when requested by the state),
the flight number, the date, the departure point of the flight and the destination of the
flight. There are also columns to list the surnames and the initials of the passengers, and
columns headed “for use by the operator only” and “for offcial use only”. The information
may be supplied either electronically or on paper.¹²²
Annex 9 also contains a number of standards and recommended practices regarding the
system for Advance Passenger Information (API). Every member state that introduces an
API system in its national legislation must take up the internationally recognised standards
for sending API data.¹²³ The relevant standards and recommended practices are further

¹¹⁶ Convention on International Civil Aviation, ICAO Doc 7300, Chicago, 7 December 1944.
¹¹⁷ Currently, 191 countries have signed the Chicago Convention.
¹¹⁸ Article 37, Chicago Convention.
¹¹⁹ Article 38, Chicago Convention.
¹²⁰ Article 29 (f), Chicago Convention.
¹²¹ Annex 9 (Facilitation), Chicago Convention, thirteenth edition, July 2011.
¹²² Standard 2.13 of Annex 9, last sentence.
¹²³ Standard 3.47 of Annex 9.

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Code share
In ICAO´s guidelines¹³³ the following has been set down about code sharing. Under a
code share agreement, an airline sells tickets under its own name for flights that are in
practice operated by another airline. The airline where a ticket is bought is the contractual
operator of the flight, while the flight is operated by another airline (the actual operator).
In other words, several airlines offer tickets for the same flight, but under their own codes
and/or flight numbers. It has also been set down in an ICAO manual that in the context of
a code share flight the contractual operator must support the actual operator when
assisting passengers and relatives, especially if the aircraft accident does not occur in the
country in which the operator’s principal place of business is located of the airline that
operates the flight.¹³⁴
D.2.2 EU regulations
The most important European rules are set down in European directives and regulations.
A directive must be implemented in Dutch legislation, while regulations will have
immediate effect on the Dutch system of law.
Provision of passenger information
Directive 2004/82/EC of the Council of the European Union (a directive pertaining to
API) applies within the European Union with regard to incoming flights. The objective of
this Directive is to improve the border control of the European Union and to control
illegal immigration to the European Union by ensuring that airlines can issue passenger
data to the competent national authorities in advance, if required. Since this legislation
mainly focuses on controlling illegal immigration to Europe/the Netherlands, it has been
incorporated in the Netherlands in the Aliens Act 2000 (Vreemdelingenwet 2000).
Passenger information and assistance after an accident
On 20 October 2010, EU Regulation no. 996/2010 on the investigation and prevention of
accidents and incidents in civil aviation came into force. This Regulation also contains
rules on the timely availability of information regarding people on board the aircraft.
Article 20 contains the following passages that are relevant to this investigation:

¹³³ ICAO Circular 269/AT/110, “Implications of Airline Code Sharing” (1997). ICAO Doc 9626, Manual on the Regulation
of International Air Transport, Second Edition, 2004.
¹³⁴ Point 5.12, ICAO Doc 9973.