Crime of Endangering Flight Safety by Violence in the Course of History

The crime of endangering flight safety by violence is the historical product of China's civil aviation administrative legislation taking the lead in conforming to the international conventions and the criminal legislation. Since the crime was established in 1997, it has been difficult to explain why the application rate of this crime is almost zero in the judicial practice, even though the fine division of violent behavior and the concepts like "quasi-abstract potential damage offense" are advocated from the perspective of criminal law hermeneutics. The crux of the problem may lie in the lack of specific provable standards for the crime of endangering flight safety, thus leading to the problem that many harmful acts are subject to other crimes or reduced to administrative punishment. Therefore, it is suggested that the connotation and the index system of "endangering flight safety" should be scientifically evaluated and established based on the practice of civil aviation transportation and the trend of aviation security, and the judicial interpretation of "causing serious consequences" should be issued when conditions are ripe.