What do you do if you need to determine the causes of aviation accidents?

Upon notification of an event, the aircraft operator will activate their emergency response plan (ERP). This facilitates a coordinated and prompt response to the event. It should also be mentioned that at the very first stage, it is likely that the operator will not have all the information concerning the event. In parallel, it is highly likely that local emergency services will be on the scene or making their way to the site. I use the word event rather than accident or serious incident, as there are clear definitions regarding what constitutes each of these, with an accident being the most serious of the two.

Engage professionals who can objectively find reasons. Gather all the evidence and try to instil confidence from those involved so that they report facts.

Secure the sight, minimise further damage Maintain safety protocols to minimise risks for people in the vicinity and investing teams Survivor assistance / Family assistance for familes of passengers Initiate ERP plan / Send Go Team Press release within 3 hours of the accident, follow up every 3 - 5hr with statements Explain the action plan for the way ahead and steps taken to support families/ survivors Accident investigation initiated by the state of accident occurrence

1. Immediate action is taken by deploying emergency services, such as firefighters, paramedics, and rescue teams, to the location of the accident. 2. To ensure the safety and integrity of the accident site, measures are taken to establish a perimeter, preventing unauthorized individuals from accessing the scene. 3. Relevant authorities, such as DGCA Air safety in the case of India, are promptly notified. In addition, international aviation organizations may also be informed if the accident involves international flights. 4. Effective communication with stakeholders & information may be provided to the public and the media, taking into consideration the sensitivity of the information.

After securing the site and safety of people working around, I think it would important to recover as many as possible of parts of the accidented aircraft. This would help to keep evidences when gathering information from other sources, like flight information or witness testimony, among other measures.

Organizing the gathered information in an Ishikawa Diagram (also called fishbone diagram) can help to understand the contributing factors on the event occurrence.

In my opinion the most important step in incident/accident investigation is data gathering because if there was no any data for an accident what can we do? Investigator must be quick to take as much information as possible, witnesses may leave the crash site, clues may destroyed etc so if the investigators reach the crash site as soon as possible they can gather more. The best source of data in any investigation is FDR and CVR that helped the investigators a lot.

The Ishikawa Diagram can support the understanding of the factors that have contributed to the occurrence of the event. Thus it is important to grant the participation from specialized people from several disciplines on this process. No opinions or ideias shall be disregarded without in-depth prior analysis by all participants.

Root causes of aviation accidents lie in the collected evidence; followed by a rigorous analysis. An investigator needs to delve into intricacies and come up with logical reasoning that corroborates with the factual evidences. The most important thing during analysis is about eliminating the factors that have no bearing to the accidents. The remaining factor(s) is the isolated cause of the occurrence. It is a tough process as it involves reconstructing the situation and gathering the database. Similarly, condition of components and their functionality if they survive also give strong clues. Many a times, similar nature of accidents lead to specific trends. Investigators need a strong eye to arrest the underlying reasons of any accident.

Very valuable post In my experience i do classify the investigation into steps as follows : 1- Factual information. 2- Analysis. 3- Findings. 4- Actions Taken (Reactive actions). 6- Recommendations and mitigation requirements. 7- Summary and conclusion.

Do not let the manufacturer of the crashed airplane, the operator, or another authority change twist, or manipulate the facts as we have seen many examples of this fashion. Deleted or added comments by all investigating parties should be marked and visible to the public. Once the final accident report is published the investigation authority must follow up on all safety recommendations.

Look at the number of reports from individuals who had previously highlighted the issues to the authorities/ unions many times already. Then use those reports to charge those who ignored those warnings to the full extent of the law.

In my opinion one the factors that must be considered is the level of safety culture in the airline. I mean we have to understand how much the personnel of the airline are respecting the safety. Do they know that they're fist mistake could be the last chain of a disaster or not. In this situation they will avoid any tiny mistakes and they do they're tasks with full responsibility.

Adding to the above, it is always necessary to analyse the history of the plane before the accident to look for the clues that may help shedding some lights on the route cause of the accident. This pre-accident history look-up may contain searching for recurrent faults and failures, any active SB/ AD which might have been due and not completed, any modifications / major alterations on systems related directly or indireclty to the accident or any history of incidents or near misses of the plane. Crew health and professional career history analysis can also help connecting the pieces of the chain of events in most cases.