The problem is that, in absence of an accident investigatory body with adequate resources and sufficient corporate competence and integrity to investigate these accidents properly and provide a useful report, we’ll never know.
It might be, as jabba suggests, just a random spike in the usual ways in which these tragedies occur. Or there could be a steady decline in the standard of airmanship. Or there could be a steady decline in airworthiness standards. Or all of the above or none of the above. Or...
We’ll never know.
Coincidentally, I laughed like a drain when I heard some underling from ATSB comment, in respect of the Ballarat Lancair accident, that the aircraft was not required to carry on-board recording devices that would have been helpful in determining the causes, or ruling out the causes, of the accident. Obviously the underling was living under a rock during the entirety of the ATSB’s ‘investigation’ of the ditching of NGA, and was in the toilet at the time Mr Dolan’s ‘beyond Reason’ Memo came out.
Yes, sinbinned: We should be very concerned. Someone should investigate the accident investigator.
