ICAO Annex 13 states the purpose of air accident investigations. It is not the immunity from prosecution that some people think.
Nick Lappos says:
Actually, the issue goes beyond release of the black box and other crash data. The real subject is "who has authority over air operations?"
Granting political, headline-grubbing local prosecutors the ability to charge people is an invitation to chaos, where local cops and prosecutors can grab headlines while having absolutely no expertise in the matter at hand.
In some countries, the ability to govern air operations and enforce air law is not granted below the national government level. In the US, for example, locals have no jurisdiction, only the FAA can enforce aviation law. While they can be bureaucratic, at least the FAA has expertise and familiarity with the law.
Nick Lappos, its misleading to suggest that air accident related cases are only in the purview of the FAA.
Examples:
- The FBI and DoT IG have pursued dealers in bogus parts.
- There was a conviction a few weeks ago of a helicopter operator senior manager after the Iron 44 Sikorsky S61N accident that killed 9 people in California because of falsified weight and balance and performance charts.
- A supplier to Sikorsky was found guilty of deception over quality control of CH-53E parts in an air accident that killed the crew from a flight at the Sikorsky factory.
Waiting to start such an investigation might well let greedy and immoral suits off the hook as documents get shredded, files deleted and stories squared away.
I do think it is a retrograde step to sweat over the minutia of crew actions in the moments before a crash and to treat the crew as guilty and seize the CVR to look for some kind of recorded self-incrimination.