Former Yageo President Chen Muyuan was sued by the Taitung District Prosecutor’s Office for violating the Civil Aviation Law for driving a helicopter without a license. A judge of the Taitung District Court found that Chen Muyuan simply started the helicopter engine for 5 minutes and did not reach the level of “flying”. He was not guilty in the first trial and the whole case was acceptable. appeal. The Taitung Prefectural Procuratorate received a report from the Taitung County Police Bureau’s successful branch in October 2020 that an R22 helicopter took off, landed and flew illegally on the east coast. After a careful investigation by the task force, it was found that Chen Muyuan was involved in serious suspicion. He arrived in October last year. Chen Muyuan searched his home and found a black Robinson R22 Beta Ⅱ light 2-seater helicopter.
The Taitung Prefectural Procuratorate determined that Chen Muyuan would start helicopters once a year from 2004 to 109, each time of 5 minutes, and he would fly 6 times.
The prosecutor argued that the aircraft flight operation management rules and the aviation personnel certification management rules stipulate that the “flying behavior” of the helicopter should start from the time when the rotor starts to rotate to the time when the rotor stops rotating, then the spinner starts to rotate , It can be recognized as entering the “take off” phase of the helicopter “flying”.
During the trial, Chen Muyuan admitted that from 104 to 109, he personally or instructed his butler to launch helicopter maintenance at a frequency of 5 minutes each time once a year. The validity period of the certificate and helicopter airworthiness certificate he obtained had expired, but he denied illegal flying.
The judge of Taitung District Court considered the explicit definition of air navigation in Article 2 Paragraph 3 of the Civil Aviation Law as “air flight: refers to the taxiing at the airport or the flight field following the take-off, navigation, landing and landing before take-off of an aircraft.” Unless otherwise specified in the Civil Aviation Law itself or other laws, it is no longer allowed to interpret “flying” without authorization.
The judge of the Taitung District Court believes that Chen Muyuan simply started the helicopter engine for regarding 5 minutes, causing the rotor to rotate due to the engine’s operation, instead of flying in the air. It was different from the civil aviation law’s “flying” norms, and he was not guilty.
Regarding the judgment of the first instance, Xie Changxia, the chief prosecutor of the Taitung District Prosecutor’s Office, said that following receiving the judgment, he would discuss with the prosecutor whether to continue the appeal.
