Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
MickG0105 said:Yes I have. You only need to look at the first few pages of the formal transcript to understand what Capt S was required to do and the context.
This was a public hearing of the NTSB’s “Office Of Administrative Law Judges”. Capt S was in front of a Board of Inquiry and was required to answer questions asked by an NSTB safety investigator, a bloke who I think was from the French equivalent of the NTSB, Ms Kolander from the Association of Flight Attendants (as you’ve noted), a representative of the FAA, a representative of the US Airline Pilots Association, and three members of the Board of Inquiry.
You and I might disagree as to the proper metaphor for the process, but it certainly did not comprise Capt S merely explaining, in a quiet chat with an NTSB investigator, what he deemed necessary to be done in the emergency, with no further comment, and the NTSB accepting that and moving on. Capt S was, in effect, cross-examined publicly about his actions – sometimes gently in his interests and sometimes more aggressively – by a number of people outside the NTSB as well as NTSB itself. (I'm confident that no PIC of an Australian RPT aircraft would expect to be formally and publicly questioned by a representative of the Flight Attendant's Association in the wake of an incident, as part of an ATSB investigation. But I'm happy to stand corrected.)
Sure: Capt S lives happily ever after. But that’s only after he was put under intense public, NTSB-mandated scrutiny involving non-NTSB people asking him questions.
My perhaps poorly made point is that there is no magic law to the effect that a PIC’s judgments in an emergency will never be the subject of any critical scrutiny and never result in negative consequences.
Thanks for that. And yes, I have no idea how somebody would think that 3+ days of public inquiry is a pleasant experience, regardless of the tone of the investigation. I've never heard of it happening here in Australia. Was there a public inquiry into QF-1 when the crew actually stuffed up, or into QF 32?
But they do stupendously more flying in the US don't they? And they have more lawyers.
I'd say your chances of being sued for anything in the US is significantly higher than in Australia. Had to laugh at the Judge Judy episode where the student pilot sued his instructor when he performed a successful emergency landing on a freeway, or another suing an instructor for damaging an aircraft when it hit a cone on the runway.
Here you can not even sue a driver that damages your car if they are insured, even if the insurer is stalling payment. You have to wait significant time and go through the ombudsman before it can progress.
BTW none of this means you should think twice about performing your duty when faced with an emergency. The rules are written in a way that prevents you from intentionally or negligently doing something and then claiming it was an emergency to get away with it. Like knowingly pushing weather and then claiming it was due 'stress of weather', when you had several other options that were just inconvenient to you. However that does mean that after an actual emergency you will most likely have to submit a report, and then most likely face some form of investigation/interview or possibly even nothing and life goes on.