To: T'aint natural
Frank Robinson may never have made a secret of his hatred of the NTSB but he does not let that stand in the way of participating in major accident investigations involving Robinson Helicopters. Whatever Jim Hall did to assist in Clintons' or Gores' campaign has absolutely nothing to do with his running the NTSB. Relative to his making changes so what. Every time a new person is appointed to a top management position he/she will try to make his/her mark on the organization. Hall left the organization several months ago and a woman who was the former assistant administrator is now running the NTSB. For your information if you are not already aware of it the NTSB is not just aviation specific. The NTSB monitors Highway Safety, Marine Safety, Aviation Safety and pipeline Safety as well as railroad safety. No one person can be knowledgeable in all of these areas. The director can have any type background and have no experience whatever in the work performed by the agency but he / she must be a good manager. When Jim Hall made most of his television presentations he was representing the agency in explaining the outcome of a major accident investigation.
He attacked the ATR, which crashed due to inadequate testing for ice accretion. He attacked the commuter airlines because of a very poor safety record and, he attacked the 737 because of a fault in the rudder control system that may have led to three crashes. I have no way of knowing why he attacked you unless you want to identify yourself and explain why you were attacked.
Regarding professionals on the accident investigation teams I would say you were wrong on that point as well. I know two individuals that investigate helicopter and aircraft accidents. One is an ex Marine CH-53 and CH-46 pilot who was also a squadron safety officer. He also worked on the Apache Program directing the office of safety. The other man is still flying in the National Guard and he has twenty years flying just about everything the US Army has in their inventory.
The FAA and the NTSB work for the same boss so naturally there is some difficulty in reaching a decision in an accident investigation. In the case of the Robinson accidents the NTSB wanted to ground them but the FAA who has the actual authority must admit they were in error in granting certification. Another point to consider is when the FAA granted certification it was not the helicopter directorate of the FAA that granted certification. It was the large aircraft certification branch, which is based in Seattle and has an office in Los Angeles. These people knew absolutely nothing about helicopters and were led by the Designated Engineering Rep who although he denies it was Frank Robinson or his agent.
What is wrong with the trial lawyers having access to accident investigations? This is a part of criminal and tort law in the USA and has been since the constitution was written. All lawyers have access to whatever evidence the prosecution has and when they don’t get it and this oversight is detected the defense or tort lawyers can request a mistrial or get the judge to seriously admonish the prosecution and possibly grant a new trial. If you haven’t read about it this is now happening in the Tim McVeigh death sentence.
It seems that you have determined that the unexplained accidents involving loss of control were attributed to low G, Low rotor RPM and/ or other known causes. This is not borne out in the NTSBs accident report. In any case, this translates into pilot error and not a basic design defect that allows these types of accidents to happen to both dumb and smart pilots.
Regarding the Australian pilots comment about low quality of instruction it would appear that the training programs in OZ don’t reflect the requirements specified by the FAA. That is not to say that pilots that have undergone this more stringent training are not capable of getting into trouble resulting in a rotor incursion or a mast bumping incident.
One final thought, do not confuse safety with reliability. Of the 35 or 36 loss of control accidents none related to reliability. There was only one crash that was reliability and quality related.
------------------
The Cat
[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 22 May 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 23 May 2001).]