Throughout aviation’s comparatively brief history, properly investigating the causes of accidents has been essential to improving flight safety, to the point that aviation is one of the safest ways to travel. Looking at the pictures of debris scattered across many square miles of Egyptian desert, or Ukrainian sunflower fields, or floating at sea, the fact we’re able to draw useful lessons from such destruction is testament to the efforts of air accident investigators worldwide. How do they do it?
Aviation rules and practices are governed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO, a UN agency) and through a document known as Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, under which all signatory nations are obliged to investigate accidents occurring within their borders. Like a coroner’s court inquest, the focus is on learning lessons rather than building a case against a perceived guilty party.
When notified of an accident, the national investigation agency deploys a team to the site – in the UK this is the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the Department for Transport. Generally the team includes three investigators: one with a pilot background, one with an engineering background, and another specialising in flight data recorders.
