CAB38-23 — Page 89

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Extension

of power of Secretary of State to regulate aircraft.

Power to compel compliance when aircraft

disobeys signals.

[See 39 & 40 Vict. c. 36, 8. 181.]

Short title.

8

Schedule I.

DRAFT OF A BILL TO AMEND THE AERIAL NAVIGATION ACT, 1911.

BE it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :—

1.-(1.) The purposes for which a Secretary of State may make orders prohibiting the navigation of aircraft over prescribed areas under the Aerial Navigation Act, 1911, shall include the purposes of the defence or safety of the realm, and where an order is made for those purposes the area prescribed may include the whole or any part of the coastline of the United Kingdom and the territorial waters adjacent thereto.

(2.) The power of the Secretary of State under the said Act shall include power by order to prescribe the areas within which aircraft coming from any place outside the United Kingdom are to land, and the other conditions to be complied with by such aircraft.*

2. If an aircraft flies or attempts to fly over any area prescribed under this Act for the purposes of the defence or safety of the realm, or, in the case of an aircraft coming from any place outside the United Kingdom, fails to comply with any of the conditions as to landing prescribed by an order under the last foregoing section, it shall be lawful for any officer designated for the purpose by Regulations made by the Secretary of State, to cause such signal as may be prescribed by those Regulations to be given, and, if after such signal has been given the aircraft fails to respond to the signal by complying with such Regulations as may be made by the Secretary of State prescribing the action to be taken on such a signal being given, it shall be lawful for the officer to fire at or into such aircraft, and to use any and every other means necessary to compel sucht compliance, and every and any such officer and every other person acting in his aid and by his direction shall be and is hereby indemnified and discharged from any indictment, penalty, action, or other proceeding for so doing.

3. This Act may be cited as "The Aerial Navigation Act, 1913"; and “The Aerial Navigation Act, 1911," and this Act may be cited together as "The Aerial Navigation Acts, 1911 and 1913.”

Power to prohibit navigation

of aircraft

over pre- scribed

areas.

Schedule II.

AERIAL NAVIGATION ACT, 1911.

An Act to provide for the Protection of the Public against Dangers arising from the Navigation of Aircraft (June 2, 1911).

BE it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

1.--(1.) A Secretary of State may, for the purpose of protecting the public from danger, from time to time by order prohibit the navigation of aircraft over such areas as may be prescribed in the order, and, if any person navigates an aircraft over any such area in contravention of any such order, he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act, unless he proves that he was compelled to do so by reason of stress of weather or other circumstances over which he had no control.

(2.) Any such order may apply either generally to all aircraft or to aircraft of such classes and descriptions only as may be specified in the order, and may prohibit the navigation of aircraft over any such prescribed area either at all times or at such times or on such occasions only as may be specified in the order, and either absolutely or subject to such exceptions or conditions as may be so specified.

• At the 122nd Meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence this Bill was approved subject to the Lord Chancellor's scrutiny. "The following words were subsequently added to Section (2) of Clause 1 at his instance; and if any person contravenes any of the provisions of any such order he shall be guilty of an offence under the said Act, unless he proves that he was compelled to do so by reason of stress of weather or other circumstances over which he had no control.

"1

†This word "such was omitted in the Act as passed.

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