Perhaps the important question, not being asked, is "is AAIB being adequately resourced to report as quickly as the aviation community would prefer, as accurately as the aviation community requires".
I suspect that the answer is increasingly "no" - not least because it is also, far too seldom now, publishing any broader reviews of accidents with collective recommendations - that has happened in the past and was a Good Thing, but unless I'm missing something, really isn't happening nowadays.
I appreciate that we have a government busy trying to drive down public sector costs, but aviation does need a competent and adequately resourced accident investigation body, just as it also needs a similarly provided authority. Not having either is causing everybody to suffer.
I'm not proposing that safety is being immediately compromised by lack of resources - but maybe in the longer term it is. Perhaps we need a law whereby the AAIB can bill aircraft insurers for all or part of the cost of investigating accidents - that'll pass the cost on to us as aircraft operators, but it would be a mechanism that resources AAIB better, and keeps t'government happy about the use of taxpayers' money?
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Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 4th Dec 2015 at 10:35.