We seem to be regressing.
I was recently struck by how quickly the accident report of Northwest 2 was issued in 1938. It involved a brand-new Lockheed Super Electra that lost the upper parts of its vertical stabilizers near Bozeman, MT, due to flutter, and crashed in a flat spin. The investigators were confronted with the proverbial smoking hole, yet the final report was presented to the Bureau of Air Commerce only 19 days after the accident.
During that interval, the investigators made a site visit, identified that components were missing from the accident scene, interviewed eye witnesses, collected data on the flight and the crew, oversaw a series of tests at the manufacturer to confirm the suspicion that flutter was the cause, developed a correction with the manufacturer and tested it, held four days of public hearings, agreed on a cause, and wrote the report.
This was before CVRs, FDRs, computer models, entrenched politics, bureaucracy and lawyers. I guess life was simpler in those days.
Must say, the very same thoughts struck me when over a year after the BA38, 777 Heathrow threshold arrival... RR still hadn't developed a new FOHE by then. During the war they produced a new version of the Merlin nearly every 3 months... and even quicker when the FW190 was chasing Spit Vs all over the sky.