It is kind of comical how every airplane accident is thoroughly investigated and systemic changes immediately proposed and implemented, while mothers of dead children have to petition for a stop sign. And I don’t mean airliners, I mean people in their little 2-4 seater Cessnas who took off when it was clear and couldn’t find the runway when the weather changed.
Then I remember that everyone in those little planes are really rich and it all makes sense.
I wouldn’t say the NTSB thoroughly investigates every small GA crash. There are quite a few where the they don’t even go to the crash site and just do it via phone interview. They’ll send investigators out when there’s something to learn that might affect airworthiness of the other existing aircraft of the same make & model. But if it’s fairly apparent that the pilot just fucked up, they often don’t send investigators out.
But if it’s fairly apparent that the pilot just fucked up, they often don’t send investigators out.
Yeah but then there’s investigation whether something could be done to reduce the chance of that specific fuckup
And then they issue a recommendation which goes into the FAA’s backlog that is thousands long.
Yup, and what sounds crazy, when those thourough investigations happen the investigators focuse on what “external factors” could have lead to the crash. Not automatically assuming pilot error/fault or negligence right away.
Once those factors are found, systemic changes are immediately proposed and implemented as you noted. Which leads to that same error not being repeated once again.
The path to safe infrastructure is usually not just “remove all barriers” but instead “control the flow of traffic”
For example when a car hits a building, which happens pretty much daily in North America, it’s automatically “driver fault”. No changes are implemented to the area, nothing restricting another car or vehicle from hitting the exact same building again. No “barriers” implemented to control the flow of traffic.
European countries on the otherhand, when collisions happen the investigation generally leans more towards what caused the driver to collide with something. Not automatically assuming the driver intentionally collide with something.
A lot of those changes involved restricting who can get a pilot’s license in the first place.
If you have an unresolved mental illness, or had an unexplained loss of consciousness ever in your life, you can’t become a pilot. You also go through a 6 to 14 month course focusing mostly on planning and managing personal risk to get your license.
If we had a similar amount of education and alternative options for getting places without driving, it works make sense to stop automatically assuming the driver was tired or otherwise at fault.