Mas 608 Aircraft Accident Investigation - Key Players and Their Recommendations

Accident Investigation

MAS 608 Aircraft Accident Investigation

Accident Investigation: Key Players and Their Recommendations

For some time I have known that I don't know everything. Granted, there was a time when I thought I did and I couldn't be told wrong if you had the reference sitting in my face. Thankfully that has all changed. In life you begin to learn that there are people out there who know things you don't and you start to realize that in some areas of life you might just need a helping hand. The same can be said on a bigger scale.

When companies don't have the resources to get something done, they get outside help. If there are problems with their efficiency, they hire an efficiency expert to come and look at the problem. When an aircraft accident is being investigated there are a lot of factors that come into play. This raises the need for many experts on many aspects. In this paper I intend to discuss aspects of a few key players in accident investigations, their recent recommendations for safety improvements, and what they can bring to the table to try and reduce the number of accident investigations that take place.

The most prominent organizations dealing with accident investigation are the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). These are the three powerhouses' associated with accident investigation and aviation safety. While each organization has its own regulations, most of their "inspiration" comes from the ICAO Annex 13 and the FAA regulation 8020.11b. Both documents lay groundwork on how to do an accident investigation. There are however smaller organizations and independent firms who do all the foot work. These are the people who gather data, analyze it, and make recommendations as well as those who help in ways that might not initially seem important.

One of the big players in an accident investigation is the Office of Accident Investigation (AAI). The AAI is the main force within the FAA, as well as everything dealing with the NTSB, when it comes to accident investigation. Their mission is to "investigate aviation accidents and incidents to detect unsafe conditions and trends and to coordinate the corrective action process" (1). When you read an NTSB accident investigation report you will come to a section called "recommendations". The AAI has a big part in this. They are responsible for giving recommendations as well as making sure the FAA is complying with those regulations. Let's go in to a little detail of how they operate.

The main job of the AAI is the actual investigation. When they are doing their investigation there are several things they keep an eye out for. They look for "major or significant accidents and incidents to identify safety deficiencies and unsafe conditions which are then referred to the responsible program offices within the FAA for evaluation and corrective action" (1). Basically they aren't only looking for what happened but also why it happened. Once they determine this it is turned over, as the quote says, to responsible offices to fix it. Before they make their notifications though the AAI is responsible for analyzing the data they find. Included is a chart of "Preliminary Accident and Incident Data" (3). It shows the preliminary data that has been accumulated on accidents that have occurred within the last 10 days.

Categories Dec 3 Dec 2 Nov 29 Nov 28 Nov 27 Nov 26 Nov 25 Nov 22 Nov 21 Nov 20

All Aircraft Events 6 14 18* 0 4 4* 22* 12* 13* 4

Fatal Accidents 0 2 2 0 2 1* 1* 0 2 1

Experimental/Homebuilt 0 2 4 0 1 1 4 2* 1 1

Miscellaneous 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Other Fixed Wing 0 4 1 0 1 0 7 3 2* 1

Other Rotorcraft 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0

The AAI analyzes "accident and incident data as well as other safety data to identify safety issues and trends" (1). This is the part of their job that helps them determine the "why" an accident happened. As we learned in class they look at everything from ground scarring to burn patterns and wreckage distribution. Once they have gathered and analyzed all the data the AAI is responsible for making recommendations and "ensuring that the FAA fully addresses (these) safety issues and recommendations" (1). Once the recommendations are made the AAI is responsible for "coordinating and tracking FAA responses to safety recommendations issued by the National Transportation Safety Board. The FAA must provide the Board with its course of action to address each initial safety recommendation within 90 days after the issue date" (2).

One other aspect of the AAI is their desire for improvement. As we read earlier the AAI is responsible for making recommendations to the FAA. What about the AAI? Who makes sure they are doing a good job? They do. The AAI "utilizes the Accident Investigation Quality Assurance Program to improve the quality of all accident and incident investigations performed by the FAA, particularly those investigations performed by personnel in Flight Standards District Offices located throughout the country" (1). In short, they take what they learn and apply it to future cases to get the job done better, more efficiently, and with the maximum result. Now that we have discussed the AAI let us move on to some of the other "help" that goes into an accident investigation.

The Commercial Aviation Safety Team, CAST, is a joint effort by the government and the aviation industry to study and attempt to eliminate aviation accidents. Some of the participants from the government side include the FAA, NASA, and the DoD. On the industry side we have companies like Boeing, Pratt and Whitney, Aerospace Industries association, and Airbus (4).

Initially in 1997 both the government and the aviation industry began separate attempts to "significantly lower" (4) the accident rate. "Recognizing that cooperation is essential to enhancing safety the government and industry teams agreed in June of 1998 to merge their respective activities and focus their efforts on the commercial aviation portion of the FAA's Safer Skies agenda" (4). Hence, CAST was born. Below is a diagram that gives