Passenger manifests to be released faster in airplane crashes

The Dutch government is establishing a special team that must ensure that information on passenger manifests is released faster after an airplane disaster, the cabinet announced in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, on Wednesday, Tubantia reports. Faster passenger manifests information must ensure that families and friends don't remain in uncertainty for too long, as was the case after the downing of flight MH17. This measure follows an evaluation on the Dutch authorities' approach to the MH17 disaster. The researchers concluded that the approach was unnecessarily burdensome and complicated in the beginning. In the letter to the Tweede Kamer, the government states that the crisis response happened "under very complex circumstances" and that the MH17 disaster entailed "unique challenges". The government also wants to improve the flow of information following airline disasters. MH17 survivors complained that they were sometimes flooded with information, and that much of that information was copies of what they already had. The government is also looking into how the Kamer can be best informed in this kind of situation.