AAIB work

[cortilla]

I'm currently working for a commercial airline and have a lot of spare time on my hands. It being winter and all.

I was just wondering how one would get into working with the AAIB. Working with them on investigations etc etc. Or do you have to work for them and then alone. This isn't something that i'd want to do tomorrow, but it would be something i'd eventually like to get involved in (flight safety in general. It's always been a topic that's interested me.)

Any hints/tips/advice greatly appreciated

[NutLoose]

see

Air Accidents Investigation: Recruitment (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/about_us/recruitment.cfm)

though dropping a CV in never hurt anyone.....


Air Accidents Investigation: About us (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/about_us/index.cfm)

[cortilla]

I did have a look before i posted. No jobs at the moment. I suppose what i really meant is can you work with the AAIB without actually leaving your current commercial job, in a form of a consultancy or something along those lines?

Because of my initial post, i've just spent the last hour or so reading through ASR's that my airline has filed online. Very interesting reading, but my eyes are now hurting

[Miles Gustaph]

You could sit an accident investigators course, Cranfield & University of Southern California have very good courses. Alternatively a short course by Scandanavian would get you started.

Then get yourself an audit course the skill sets are very helpful for accident investigation; do some reading a flight safety, and as much as you can on human factors.

Talk nicely to your QA department and see what they have in the accident/incident pipeline, they probably have at least one little job, offer to write it up for them, they’d probably thank you for the offer.

If you’re going to want to do field work then your going to want to brush up on Health & Safety particularly with regard to personal protective equipment, and hazards associated with crash sites. A blood Bourne pathogens course would be essential for a filed investigator.

If you’re thinking long term, get yourself signed up to the City University London Safety Management MSc it covers accident investigation and a lot of the skill sets needed to be an investigator.

PM me if you need any more info.

Miles

[unstable approach]

cortilla

All AAIB inspectors are full time employees, and as far as I am aware there is no use of consultant 'investigators', they do however make use of other 'experts' for specific aspects of an investigation if the need arises.

[Miles Gustaph]

There is a market for consultant investigators.

Airframe & Engine manufacturers regularly use them as "official representatives" to be present on their behalf during an investigation.

Insurance companies are also ever so keen to employ them for the purpose of claim mitigation.

[Lookleft]

Try getting involved in your airline's safety department as a first step.

[cortilla]

Thanks for all the advice. I've been talking to my local safety rep recently about all the options. The only problem at the moment is if i get in to the safety department he'd be out of it as it were.

Well it's a long term career goal and i'll keep plugging away at it (probably next winter now because summer's looking to be a busy time and i'll have to concentrate on my primary job of actually flying the plane)

[Genghis the Engineer]

In my experience (which is reasonable) there is a fair amount of freelance work out there, not generally in initial accident investigations for somebody like AAIB, but more likely in post-report "adjustment": advising legal cases as an expert witness, providing input to insurance companies own deliberations, etc.

The best bet is to get yourself registered with somebody like the BAAC (http://www.baac.org.uk/Profile.html) or RAeS (http://www.raes.org.uk/raesother/cp_news/Oct_04/CP_Bulletin_oct_for_web2.htm#consultancy) and perhaps make yourself known to one or two of the law firms who are involved in commercial aviation work.

It's also worth mentioning that in this line of work, once one has got past the basic requirement to know an awful lot about your subject, there are other skills you need. The single biggest of these is report writing - if you have, say, an engineering degree or an MBA that should help you a lot but my experience is that the rigour of the sort of reports one needs to be writing in consultancy is rather more than in most undergraduate level work - closer to PhD level. Of course, you don't need to have a PhD to be at that level of ability, but you do need a lot of experience of writing big complex technical reports for an aggressively rigorous readership.

G

[Deeday]

I was just wondering how one would get into working with the AAIB. Working with them on investigations etc etc.

Found this thread only now. You may want to have a look at the one I started a few months ago (Working for the AAIB (http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/352617-working-aaib.html)), although it's more about the engineering side of it.