Many of you may not be aware that in certain countries, for example France, legal investigations concerned with determining if a crime has been committed take precedence over the causal accident investigation. This issue was addressed three times in print in 2006 by Aviation Week's european columnist Pierre Sparaco.
In Germany, the state prosecution office is in charge of accident investigations in which people are injured, for non-aviation accidents. I shall inform myself what the situation is for commercial aviation (I have the law sitting on my shelf downstairs in a couple of thick folders, but I think I prefer to ask someone).
I addressed this issue a year ago in my talk to the 9th Bieleschweig Workshop in Hamburg
(
Workshop Proceedings
and
talk slides). It is not going to go away.
PBL