Timothy
Originally Posted by
Timothy
One lesson that might be learned is that this is an indictment of the AAIB methodology.
I am rather surprised at this comment coming from you.
Clearly AAIB isn't a court of law, and the intention is not to ascribe blame,
I think their intention could be better described as "to
not ascribe blame". The purpose of accident investigations is clearly set out in Annex 13 t the Chicago Convention 1948, which in Chapter 3 Section 1 says:
The sole objective of the investigation of an accident
or incident shall be the prevention of accidents and incidents.
It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or
liability.
Blame and liability is for the courts to eventually determine (as I believe you well know!), while administrative action might be taken by the local civil aviation authority. If the pilot was careful enough to eliminate all the usable evidence, neither the courts nor the CAA would have had anything to go on, and the only available remedy would have been for plane owners and renters to be aware of this man's qualities before allowing him to fly their hardware. This is all moot now as he appears to have met his fate.
But in any event, I do not think I understand your point re. the AAIB.
I am not criticising the AAIB inspectors, they are working to brief. I am questioning the brief they are given, which does not seem to be geared towards dangerous flying.
Well, no. I think it's fair to say that intentionally putting oneself at risk (dangerous flying) might well end up in tears, so there is not much to learn from it, is it?