Originally Posted by Widger
If you feel strongly about the outcome of a report, you have the right to write to the Director with your comments on matters of fact. The aim of the game is to get an accurate and truthful picture of what happened to try and prevent any recurrence.
Widger talks as if he knows the system from the inside. Whilst I recognise the constraints that UKAB must operate under, it would be disappointing to think that the outcome is of less value than it could be for want of a little more co-ordination.
In my experience and this seems to be shared by others with whom I've spoken, the reports published by UKAB have a tendency to reflect specific views held by those on the Board - this is not surprising, we all base our decisions on our own experience. But, sometimes, these views appear to be blinkered to other possibly equally valid viewpoints - perhaps those views held by the people involved in the incident. On one occasion I recall (not one of mine but I was in the tower at the time), the UKAB made assumptions about the decision process followed by the controller which were rather wide of the mark. These assumptions were based on one line of the report and then, presumably, extrapolated by the Board members into what they would have been thinking at the time and would probably have given a slightly misleading impression to readers of the report.
By giving an opportunity to those involved in the incident to comment before publication it is possible that some additional benefit may be gained, both by improving the accuracy of the report and by permitting gaps in the factual elements that the reporters did not know would become key to the report to be filled in. Of course, the downside is that inevitably some of those given such an opportunity would seek to record a revisionist view of the events or to skew it with their personal perspective. Nonetheless, I can't help feeling that if it were managed properly then such a step could address some of the weaknesses in an otherwise very valuable and professionally operated reporting and analysis scheme.