Aircraft Salvage in Admiralty Law
In a deal signed between a private seabed exploration firm and the Malaysian government, the latter was willing to pay up to $70-million in rewards conditional upon finding the elusive aircraft MH370.[1] This ‘no find, no fee’ arrangement has led to increased interest in the admiralty law of salvage because of its uncanny resemblance to the ‘no cure, no pay’ clause commonly found in salvage contracts like Lloyd’s Open Form.
But does this payment arise because of the law of (pure) salvage, or is it one that is freely agreed to by both parties in absence of regulations?
HISTORY
Salvage law as we know of it today began with the reception of medieval Rhodian, Byzantine, and Roman codes into English Common Law during the reign of Richard I, through the Rolls of Oleron that adjudicated the flourishing wine trade between Aquitaine, England and the Flanders.[2] The law was then developed and refined through centuries of adjudication, in particular, through a series of decisions in the English Admiralty Court from 1633 to 1900,[3] and finally codified by the 1910 Brussels Convention on Maritime Salvage, broadly setting down the English law of salvage as the international norm.
Salvage is the orderly legal method of reward for saving ‘maritime property’ in peril or distress on navigable waters.[4] It is based on the idea that a special reward would promote the orderly organization of voluntary salvage efforts, minimize loss of life and commerce, and discourage plunder and piracy in situations where police surveillance are not ordinarily available.[5] Corollary, the service of salvage attracts on the salved ‘subjects’ (maritime property), an in rem common law possessory lien[6] and maritime lien in admiralty,[7]and a right of action in personam against the owners of such property.[8] These choses in possession and action allows the salvor an enforceable claim for reward.
WHAT PROPERTY COUNTS AS ‘MARITIME PROPERTY’?
Contrary to popular belief that salvage provides rewards for anything saved from the sea, the law only rewards the salvage of certain ‘recognised subjects’.[9]Historically, these ‘recognised subjects’ were ‘maritime property’, defined by Lord Esher MR to mean ‘vessels and ships used for the purpose of being navigated, … her apparel and cargo, … and the wreck of these and freight’.[10] Money on a floating corpse [11] and floating logs[12] has also given rise to salvage as well. With advancements in transportation technology and maritime activities such as oil, gas and seabed exploration, this been extended to include hovercraft,[13]bunkers,[14] floating cranes,[15] backhoe dredgers, [16] offshore floating oil rigs and installations,[17] and sometimes seaplanes.[18]
Usually, there will be no difficulty in identifying what constitutes maritime property. But over the years, problematic cases have arisen.[19]
In R v Goodwin,[20] Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers CJ held that a jet-ski was not a vessel because it was not sea-going and does not go to sea on voyages.[21]Similarly, Henry J opined that a ‘vessel used in navigation’ must be principally used on navigable waters that are used by vessels going from point A to B, and not merely for pleasure purposes.[22] But in The Mac, Cotton LJ expressed that a ship need not be sea-going to qualify as a vessel – it need only float and be used for a particular purpose.[23]
AIRCRAFT AS ‘MARITIME PROPERTY’? NO.
The question of whether aircraft could be ‘subjects’ of salvage is even more complicated. When aircraft are carried as cargo or freight on ships, they are held to be ‘subjects’ of salvage. But on their own, they are not ‘subjects’ of salvage. While, in some instances seaplanes have been held to be ‘subjects’ of salvage (see [18]), ordinarily they have not.
In Watson v R.C.A Victor Co, Sheriff Morton remarked that in common law ‘it would be a stretch of imagination to describe a seaplane a ship [sic]’.[24] In the USA, it was held that ‘aircraft … not being of the sea or restricted in their activities to navigable waters, are not maritime.’[25]
While some countries like the United Kingdom,[26] Singapore,[27] New Zealand,[28] Namibia,[28a] Canada,[28b] South Africa,[28c] Sweden,[28d] Ghana,[28e] and Hong Kong[29] have since legislated to extend principles and laws of maritime salvage to aircraft, the laws only apply insofar as the salvage occurs within their own waters.[30] There were no laws that applied to salvage on the high-seas, nor specifically to aircraft.
When the 1910 Brussels Convention on Salvage was drafted, it applied only to ships, and the international law on aircraft salvage was virtually non-existent. Planes were not commonplace then. The first commercially viable flight service began in 1914, and it was around then that states began work to extend maritime principles and law of salvage to aircraft.[31]
ATTEMPTS TO REGARD AIRCRAFT AS ‘MARITIME PROPERTY’ IN SALVAGE LAW
This led to the Paris Air Navigation Convention 1919, which largely extended the application of the 1910 Convention to aircraft. The Air Convention was ratified by 23 countries.[32] The USA, however, did not ratify this convention. The USA, together with 7 other pan-American countries, ratified the 1928 Havana Air Convention, which differed slightly from the 1919 Paris and 1910 Conventions. Nonetheless, both Air Conventions obligated life salvage and provided that ‘in absence of agreement to the contrary, the salvage of aircraft at sea is to be governed by “principles of maritime law”’.[33]
Momentum to enact more globally applicable legislation led to the conclusion of an international aircraft salvage convention in 1938 [33a]. But this was not ratified, largely due to the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and an error that granted baggage, personal effects, mail and parcel post immunity from salvage liability – which rendered it to be of little effect.[34] During the war, the 1919 and 1928 Air Conventions, despite still being in force, were largely ignored, and many war victims were left to die.
DECLINE OF SALVAGE LAW
After WWII, governments decided that volunteer motive in saving life and property in peril were ‘unreliable, and that callous airmen and shipmasters would leave distressed aviators to their fate’.[35] States began to take the responsibility of saving life and salvaging property upon themselves. The legal thinking and procedure that used to be based on principles of private law had come to be regarded as governmental responsibility.[36] The law rewarding aircraft salvage transformed into rules of search and rescue. After WWII, states ratified the Chicago Convention, which amongst other things, established the ICAO and placed emphasis on search and rescue, rather than voluntary salvage efforts.
Over time, the principles and law of aircraft salvage fell into abeyance, and is now of little practical effect and significance.
TIME TO RESURRECT AIRCRAFT SALVAGE LAWS?
The search for MH370 reminds us that governments cannot provide a solution to everything. In this instance, governments lack funding and expertise to carry out their own search. While monetory salvage rewards now seem non-existent, rekindling policies and practice to reward volunteer efforts can incentivize individuals and private firms to assist ships and aircraft in distress, especially when there is no obligation to save property, and where resources like funding or emergency assistance are limited – over deserts and wilderness, and across oceans.
A new International Convention could be apt for this purpose, not merely to regulate salvage on high-seas, but because an international standard is highly persuasive in encouraging countries to enact uniform or harmonized legislation. This is especially true for Australia, where the legislature is highly committed to their international obligations, and where its current law on salvage does not extend to aircraft as a ‘subject’ of salvage that is, on its own, capable of giving rise to a salvage reward.[37]
Jing Zhi (Benjamin) Wong is a third year Engineering Science & Law and Society major at The University of Western Australia. He is the current President of the UWA International Law Club.
Photo Credit: Image by Navigea Ltd, 2018.
[1]<https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-malaysia-airlines-mh370/malaysia-to-pay-u-s-firm-up-to-70-million-if-it-finds-missing-mh370-idUKKBN1EZ0NY>.
[2]Thomas Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law (West Publishing Co., 2nded, 1994) vol 1, 9; vol 2, 322.
[3]First clear example of a suit for salvage in admiralty is in 1633; Marsden R G, Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty, 1897, vol 2, xxxvi; Richard Shaw, ‘The 1989 Salvage Convention and Lloyd’s Open Form 1990: Are they working?’ (1992) Marine Policy 127.
[4]Arnold Knauth, ‘The Aviation at Sea Convention of 1938’ (1939) 10 Air L. Rev. 146, 148.
[5]Arnold Knauth, ‘Aviation and Salvage: The Application of Salvage Principles to Aircraft’ (1936) 36(2) Columbia Law Review 224, 225.
[6]Hartford v Jones (1698) 1 Ld Raym 393; 91 ER 1161.
[7]HMS Thetis (1833) 3 Hag Adm 14, 48; 166 ER 312, 325; Admiralty Act 1988 (Cth) s 15(2)(a).
[8]The Two Friends (1799) 1 Ch Rob 271, 277; 165 ER 174, 176; Cargo ex Schiller (1877) 2 PD 145, 157.
[9]Francis Rose and David Steel, Kennedy Law of Salvage (Stevens & Sons, 5thed, 1985) 8.
[10]The Gas Float Whitton (No 2) [1897] AC 337; The Westminster (1841) 166 ER 558, 559; Alera Manderaka-Sheppard, Modern Admiralty Law (Routledge-Cavendish, 2001) 658.
[11]Broere v Two Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Three Dollars, 72 F.Supp 115 (E.D.N.Y 1947).
[12]Tidewater Salvage Inc v Weyerhaeuser Co, 633 F.2d 1304 (9thCir. 1980).
[13]Admiralty Act 1988 (Cth) s 3(1).
[14]‘Bunkers’ refer to vessels used to store petroleum products offshore for the purpose of refuelling ships. These bunkers may be unpowered. see The Span Terza [1984] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 119; see also Scandinavian Bunkering AS v Bunkers on board The Ship FV “Taruman” (2006) 151 FCR 126; 231 ALR 605, 606-8, where within meaning of Admiralty Act 1988 (Cth) s 3(1), “ship” includes bunkers aboard a powered ship.
[15]R v St John Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co Ltd (1981) 126 DLR (3d) 353.
[16]The Von Rocks [1992] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 198; Stewart v Dutra Construction Co, 543 US 481 (2005).
[17]Manderaka-Sheppard, above n 10, 659.
[18]Lambros Seaplane Base Inc v The Batory, 215 F.2d 228, 233 (2d Cir. 1954); Schoenbaum, above n 2,
[19]Damien Cremean, Admiralty Jurisdiction: Law and Practice in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong (Federation Press, 3rded, 2008) 35-9.
[20]R v Goodwin [2006] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 432; 1 WLR 546.
[21]Ibid, 538.
[22]Curtis v Wild [1991] 4 All ER 172, 175.
[23]The Mac (1882) 7 PD 126, 131; Cremean, above n 19, 37.
[24]Watson v R.C.A Victor Company Inc (1934) 50 Lloyd’s List Law Reports 77, 79.
[25]The Crawford Bros (No. 2), 215 Fed. 269 (W. D. Wash. 1914).
[26]Air Navigation Act, 10 & 11 Geo. V, c. 80, s 11 (1920); Administration of Justice Act 1956 (UK) s 3(3); Civil Aviation Act 1982 (UK) s 87; The Eschersheim [1976] 1 WLR 430, 434-5. The 1956 Act extended the principles of maritime and salvage claims/liens under the 1952 International Convention for the unification of certain rules relating to Arrest of Sea-going Ships to aircraft.
[27]High Court (Admiralty Jurisdiction) Act (Cap 123) (Sing) ss 3(1)(i), (h), 4(1)(j), (k).
[28]Admiralty Act 1973 (NZ) ss 4(i), 6(1).
[28a] Wreck and Salvage Act 2004 (Namibia), Act 5 of 2004, s 3.
[28b] Canada Shipping Act 2001
[28c] Wreck and Salvage Act 1996 (South Africa), Act 94 of 1996, s 4.
[28d] Aviation Act 2010 (Sweden), 2010:500, ch 10.
[28e] Ghana Civil Aviation Act, Act 678 of 2004, s 32.
[29]High Court Ordinance (Cap 4) (HK) ss 12A(2)(i), (j), (k).
[30]NZ: within own territorial waters, Singapore: within inland waterways, HK: within the waters of Hong Kong, UK: within tidal waters, or within the limits of Her Majesty’s jurisdiction (Watson v R.C.A Victor Co); Crimean, above n 19, 41.
[31]Knauth, above n 5, 232-3.
[32]Ibid; countries that ratified the convention include Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain, Belgium, Bolivia, the British Empire, France, Greece, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Siam, Japan, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Uruguay, Poland, Panama, Persia, Chile & Saar.
[33]Paris Air Navigation Convention of 1919, Art 23; Habana Air Convention 1928, Art 26.
[33a] Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to Assistance and Salvage of Aircraft or by Aircraft at Sea, Brussels, 29 September 1938.
[34]Knauth, above n 5, 242.
[35]Ibid, 240-1.
[36]I.H Diederiks-Verschoor, An Introduction to Air Law (Kluwer Law International, 8thed, 2006) 281; Chicago Convention, art 25 & annex 12.
[37]Cremean, above n 19, 41. Admiralty Act 1988 (Cth).