Originally Posted by
Peter Ogilvie
Evening guys, I,m not a pilot and in general I,m fairly ignorant with regard to most things around PPL, however this crash involved my two friends who I'd spent 4 days with including climbing Ben Nevis. The reason for me joining your forum and posting on here is I'd like to know how long the AAIB may take to discover the cause and will they make their findings public ? Also they have located the main body of the plane around 40 metres down, will they recover it ? Bearing in mind the aircraft had only flown around 60 miles in 30 minutes it was full of fuel, would that pose a contamination risk to wildlife ?? Sorry for so many questions, all responses gratefully received thank you.
I'm sorry to hear this Peter. I was flying in the area, and was probably one of the last people to speak to your friends before they took off (and before anybody asks, everything I can remember has already been written up and sent to the AAIB, although I don't think that I have many particular insights, and AAIB don't seem to think so either).
AAIB reporting times are extremely variable, because of course there are no "standard" aircraft accidents. My suspicion is that this one will take a while, from my observations of AAIB (whose work I have professional interests in).
Will they try and raise the wreckage? I don't know, but as has already been said, this will depend entirely upon whether they think that there are important answers to be found down there that they can't establish otherwise. Only the AAIB inspectors on the scene know the answer to that.
It may be helpful to understand AAIB's job. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not their job to understand the accident - although they do do that, it's as a means to an end. AAIB's job is to learn enough to make recommendations which, if followed, can prevent (or at least significantly reduce the risk of) future accidents. When they do this well, it is a very valuable service to the community - if you want to read an example of this done well download their final report on the Shoreham air crash.
What I do know of this accident suggests that pilot ability and weather will both be under scrutiny, as will some of the local services to provide pilots with information. What I don't know is whether the AAIB will consider that, when they learn about them, those will be sufficient to create as many useful recommendations as they can towards the prevention of future accidents. This is what is likely to determine whether they consider there's a need to try and raise the wreckage.
G