"Undiscovering Evidence"
A fundamental problem that was highlighted in the criminal investigation of the NZ dash 8 accident was once the evidence is known to exist, how does the legal system deny the existence of evidence?
It would appear that the existing ICAO Annex 13 structure develops two problems:
-Nationalism of the investigatory process.
-Identification of evidence to the national legal system.
If it assumed that the intent of Annex 13 is to provide for a global safety enhancing protocol, then perhaps there are alternative methods to implement processes that would achieve a global outcome rather than a national centric one, and at the same time mitigate the availability of evidence that currently exists.
Under current protocols, the state of registry, event, operator and manufacturer have interest in the safety investigation. The responsible investigation agency is the state of the geographic location of the event (simply). This protocol results in varied levels of investigation capacity being available, and the "potential" for politicising the outcome of the investigation. All of these aspects result in adverse outcomes for the safety improvement value of the process.
If it assumed that the industry is global, then the process of investigation should also be global in nature, not national. The matter of sovereignty should be able to be made subservient to an obligation to be a global partner in safe transportation. The states that are signatories to ICAO, and compliant to various extents are to an extent deferring to global practices instead of national standards, to achieve a common standard and subsequent freedom of operation. This is not the case in investigation, where the variability and national interest remains to act adversely against the desired outcome.
A global (ICAO?) based principle investigation program drawing competency from appropriate resources of member nations would allow for the removal of political interference for target investigations, being any carrier with international rights at a minimum, preferably all commercial operations.
While a global program would standardise the investigation process, and remove political interference, it would also have the opportunity to place the evidence provided by recording systems outside the national boundary, and would permit the information derived from such a process to be constrained to safety improvement recommendations alone, which is after all the intent of safety investigation. On such a basis, the enhancement of recording systems (video etc) would not be so onerous to the operators.
For the national legal investigation, evidence would be naturally constrained to that achieved by normal legal process of discovery and investigation.
My personal investigation experience has been that numerous ICAO signatory states have published grossly inadequate or politicised final reports, and it is not often that dissenting opinion is either recorded, or considered rationally in any depth.
Any solution to the competing demands of safety enhancement/accident prevention and personal responsibility particularly in the case of gross or willful negligence will need an overhaul of existing protocols, and most if not all states would be impacted to various extents. the current system is flawed with both highly developed states and lesser developed states having failed to de-politicise reports, or to take action on accountability when the evidence of culpability is overwhelming from sources available under normal discovery processes.
This is posted to generate discussion, so please do so. Would prefer that personal affront is limited to a dull roar.
FDR