Originally Posted by
AmuDarya
MONTREAL-- The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) deplores and condemns yesterday's leaking of certain elements of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the Germanwings flight 4U9525.
Not only do these leaks contravene the internationally agreed principles of accident investigation confidentiality set out in ICAO Annex 13, they are also a breach of trust to all those involved in the investigation and to the families of the victims. Furthermore, leaks of this nature greatly harm flight safety since they invite ill-informed speculation from the media and the general public and discourage co-operation with investigators in future accidents.
IFALPA once again stresses that the sole purpose of a CVR is to aid investigators in determining the factors leading to an accident and not to apportion blame or be used outside of its safety context. CVR details should only be publicly released following a thorough and complete investigation of the events that occurred, and not prematurely during the course of the field portion of the accident investigation, underway for less than 48 hours.
Leaking premature, unanalyzed, and partial CVR recordings, which lack the context of the entire body of factual investigative data, severely interferes with the investigative process, and can only lead to early conclusions on what exactly occurred during the time leading up to the accident. Any other use of CVR data is not only invalid, but is an unacceptable invasion of privacy best described as a search for sensationalism and voyeurism of the worst kind.
It is vital for the investigating body to ensure all information under their control is properly handled until the completion of the investigation.
In this early stage of the investigation, many critical questions remain to be answered, and IFALPA stresses the need for an objective accident investigation process through the collection of all the facts needed to draw an accurate analysis of events. Once again, IFALPA’s resources are at the disposal of the Accident Investigation Agencies to achieve these aims.
Note: The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations represents in excess of 100,000 pilots in more than 100 countries world-wide. IFALPA’s mission is to be the global voice of airline pilots, promoting the highest level of aviation safety and security world-wide and providing services, support and representation to all of its Member Associations.
1. It has become abundantly plain from the release of more data from the CVR that this was not an accident therefore the rules for accident investigation no longer apply. This is now a criminal investigation of a mass murder.
2. It is also plain that the security rules in place in many airlines and enabled by technology, are not sufficient to prevent this type of event recurring. It is therefore urgent to ensure that all air carriers and regulatory authorities are immediately aware of the issues and can take action that they see fit to mitigate the actual safety risk to their passengers and aircraft. This approach of provision of information for immediate mitigation of a risk is standard practice even in an accident investigation.
IFALPA needs to get off its high horse and think about what has been published and what IFALPA should do to assist mitigation of an actual risk. As is often the case in criminal investigations, which this now is, the investigators have not leapt to judgment on guesses and have a lot more information from the CVR which had not been made publicly available when IFALPA wrote their letter. Their letter in hindsight may not look particularly well judged.