Air India Airlines did not single-handedly inspire the newly formed Indian separate body to investigate air accidents, but as the committee was formed immediately after the Air India Express crash in Mangalore that claimed 158 lives, it certainly was a major catalyst. It remains to be seen if the new investigatory committee will be as efficient or reliable as the US’s NTSB/FAA which investigates all major air events in the US and some outside of the US (when requested by foreign agencies or when American pilots, citizens, service or goods are involved).

Certainly the DGCA needs help. We have already pointed out in a prior editorial that the DGCA’s report on the Mangalore crash is overdue. The Times of India quoted the DGCA’s own statutes:

According to Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) Section 5 (Air Safety), Series C, Part I issued on 13 October 2006, “preliminary report by the inspector of accidents/inquiry officer should be finalized within 10 days of the accident.”

We have also located a source that claims that * all of Air India Express managerial positions are “part-time.” Does this mean that the company was deliberately set up to have no key personnel who can be targeted as decision-makers? Though why should that matter? Air India Express is the budget branch of a larger company; Air India Express is a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India which is now part of National Aviation Company of India Limited (a merger between Air India and Indian Airlines.) Someone is in control.

Those who fly India and have high expectations of the new safety committee being effective may be in for a let down while the newly formed body finds its footing. The new, separate Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council which has been set up to handle air crashes has no experts from Air Traffic Control (ATC) nor expert pilots. Along with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) chief, Dr Nasim Zaidi, the 28 member body includes Aviation CEOs including Air India Chairman Arvind Jadav, Spicejet CEO Sanjay Aggarwal, managing editor of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, Kapil Kaul.

If you take a look at how the NTSB handles an investigation, you will see that a team of experts are engaged and all interested parties, including pilots, are represented, including some you might not expect. Without such input, investigation is a waste of time.

The NTSB team of investigators handle individual aspects of the individual investigation, allocated by expertise. Each expert is responsible for a specific and sometimes overlapping portion of the investigation. Specialization like this helps develop and apply expertise in each area and prevents key points from being overlooked. Also, bear in mind that the experts involved in investigating each crash will differ, depending on the parties involved; and most of these parties are on site within hours of the crash.

SomeAreas of investigation/investigators

• Structures investigators (who also usually takes responsibility for the crash site, ensuring that all the wreckage (e.g. wings, fuselage, and undercarriage) is accounted for and that proper trails of evidence are followed)
• Engines investigators
• Systems investigators such as flight controls
• Airline’s Operations investigators (also studying crews’ training and suitability)
• Black box investigators
• Accident flight’s relationship with air traffic controllers
• Meteorologists who analyze the weather at the time of the crash to determine if it had a bearing on the accident.
• Metallurgists who analyze the condition of the plane’s metal and the forces on it
• Sound specialists (for eg, identifying sounds on black box tapes)
• Fire and Explosions experts
• Simulation experts who reproduce the events
• Flight survival experts who analyze the forces the passengers were subjected to. (These are the people who can tell you the safest place to sit on a plane.)
• Maintenance experts who analyze the plane’s condition–and how it got that way
• Psychologists may examine procedures to determine if airline practices exist that cause the pilot to make mistakes, like flying different types of planes. (e.g. Different types of cockpit controls make switching planes an unsafe practice.)
• Manufacturers representatives who study and analyze their product’s performance
• Pilots (representatives from the pilots’ union) may be attached to many or all groups; just as…
• Labor Unions such as the International Association of Aircraft Machinists may attach representatives to multiple groups.
• Cooperating “foreign specialists” in wreckage reconstruction, black box decoding or interpretation. (Countries who develop special expertise in various fields are often called to join the investigation, just as the NTSB is frequently asked to join foreign investigations.)

  Plane manufacturers have their own investigative teams experienced in this type of analysis, and they stand ready to work on any event that needs their expertise. And the investigation is networked so that if and when they need additional specialists, they can tap into their own company resources.

  One should note that in the case of the Mangalore Crash investigation, the wreckage sat out in the elements for 50+ days before being collected and warehoused. In my opinion, this is carelessness; and furthermore, this carelessness is just one visible aspect demonstrating where the existing procedures are obviously not up to par. While I am sure that experts combed the wreckage, including Boeing, (they always dispatch a team when one of their planes is in a crash,) leaving the wreckage out in the elements is not a best practice for conservation/preservation of evidence. One can only wonder how all other aspects of procedure including those behind closed doors-stand up to Aviation Industry’s internationally expected best practices.

  The industry calls this massive joint investigation the “party system.”

  The parties involved include all parties affected. The more parties involved, the faster the investigation may go.

  Chairmen of each group make their report; and any groups who discover any failures or unusual effects of machinery make note in the final report given to the primary investigator. The investigator invites the individual groups to provide their angle on what caused the crash and how it might be prevented.

  If all the probable causes line up neatly, then it is a simple thing to complete the final report. When theories conflict, the final report takes longer, and tension develops.

  All of this information is supposed to remain confidential until the final report is published.

  In this “party system,” the various opposing parties tend to keep each other “honest”. Unfounded attempts at blame by one party will be met with rebuttal by another–so it is obvious that if there is no pilot representation in this new committee, pilots may end up the “dumping ground.” Let’s say, for example, that a pilot in a crash went in with bad input like an outdated map. Is this committee set up to pursue the investigation to the source of the bad input? A pilot’s association representative would be instrumental in getting to the cause, whether it might be inadequate training, or materials.

  The international community and the people of India are waiting to see how this new committee manages to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in India, and whether it helps keep India’s DGCA and the safety of India’s aviation systems on track.

  * Need separate body to probe air crashes: Patel; Economic Times, The (India), May 25, 2010

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