French gouvernement/préfecture)?

Is it normal for a govt to do this? Are there other examples of this happening?

- to save my trawling the previous 292 posts, does anyone have any inkling what this is about?

BOAC, sorry, no.
My post & associated quote/link was intended more as a caution to treat certain media reports with a bit of suspicion, especially when the source isn't named.
Reference the reported "criminal probe", no names were quoted either.
Which does not, of course, mean that such a probe isn't happening.
This would be normal in my country; an injury or fatal accident is treated as a crime scene by the police, in case proceedings are deemed appropriate later, for the purpose of evidence gathering. I suspect there exists a similar state of affairs in France.

Didn't someone from NWA try this with disastrous results?

What could possibly be the excuse in a criminal investigation to delay attempts to extract valuable data from the recorders by more than a month, if it is correct that the recorders will not be sent to Honeywell until the first week of January? :confused:

Any delay would also hamper the criminal investigation, wouldn't it?

Credibility, you say? Wall St. Journal is now owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Other criminal probes of airplane crashes? The FBI made a mess of the TWA800 investigation (or coverup). Only "internet conspiracy theorists" believed a missile could have been involved, yet the FBI remained in control long after they had stated it was not foul play. Those pesky internet weirdos, and many, if not most TWA employees, and many close to the investigation never accepted the evidence and conclusions of the official investigation.

GB

BOAC, Tarq57, et al

I would expect "criminal probe" is simply a mistranslantion of "enquète judiciaire", i.e., a judicial enquiry, which is normal practice in France in the case of fatal accidents (same as in NZ, according to Tarq57).

But why they're still "sitting" on the recorders is something I don't understand either.

CJ

Considering how many A320 family aircraft ( & by association as far as I am concerned with these FBW wonders, 330/340/380) are in service ,the tardiness of response has to be viewed as either lax or fishy. :hmm:

You would have imagined Airbus would be fairly keen ( under normal circumstances :rolleyes: ) to see some progress on this.

Perhaps ChristiaanJ [or someone] can explain the French criminal investigation system to us. Is it true that there is a specialty of investigative judges who perform duties similar to the District Attorney / Grand Jury in the USA and some other countries? Do these investigative judges make the decision as to whether to press changes? If so, there's a good chance for the non-French press to get the wrong impression.

Whatever the legal system (and the French one is not the fastest ) they should not be allowed to interfere with or impede the progress of a "safety investigation". Otherwise the tail really is wagging the dog.

Absolutely none, you're quite correct. Safety is of immediate concern, whether proving there's no issue or uncovering same if there is one, while legal issues can take years to resolve (think Habsheim, Mont St.-Odile, Lockerbie etc). The two are incompatible but it serves French-government (ie Airbus-stakeholder) interests to use the latter as an excuse for keeping the lid on in the former.

On a related French-aerospace legal issue, think also how long it's taking for the legal cases against former and current Airbus employees accused of corruption in the 2005/6 A380 shares fiasco. And stepping outside aerospace for a second but staying in France, there's a long-running legal case against former-president Chirac which is going nowhere fast while corruption charges against former-prime minister de Villepin are not rushign through the courts either.

But French legal matters only proceed at the pace the current French government dictates -- the two are inseparable. This fact is of considerable relevance here re the A320 loss.

And it will get worse from a transparency point of view from 2009 as the French 'reorganise' EADS and Airbus, bringing the latter more under French law...

Corruption is not unique to France; we've got plenty here in the U.S. But at least the aviation industry is quite open.

ENDERBY BROWNE

Just because you live in France, doesn't authorize you to speak like that.

Mister E B is probably the kind of anti Airbus junk that knows nothing but pretends he detains the truth.
The same that pretended recorders have been tampered with in the case of Habsheim to lure justice, the same that accused AIRBUS of not releasing info on the Ethyad A 340 destroyed in Toulouse, etc.

If the recorders have not been sent to honeywell (there is no official confirmation of this) there must be a good reason, because AIRBUS, and French justice are both eager to know why this aicraft crashed.

As well as the public.....

".....AIRBUS, and French justice are both eager to know why this aicraft crashed."

Yes, but are they eager for everyone else to know?

Sorry, not well informed about the French judicial system, even if I live there now.

But yes, there is a "juge d'instruction", who is charged with the judicial part of the inquiry, and who will decide whether there is a "case to answer" and whether anybody should be "mis en examen" on specific charges, such as involuntary homicide, gross negligence, or whathever.

seacue,
I think a "juge d'instruction" is indeed not dissimilar to a "district attorney", and it's indeed his decision on whether any charges are to be pressed, and whether there is a case to be put before a court.

CJ

The newest NZ Herald article now seems to admit that investigators in France are "going through protocols" to comply with French law before the recorders can be sent over to Honeywell:

Air NZ plane crash worries airlines - National - NZ Herald News

ChristiaanJ is correct. Its not a case of it being corrupt - quite the reverse - its the way its set up to prevent it being corrupt. Its the simple fact that in French transport accidents the 'gouvenment' order a 'lock-down' of information, communications, and procedures under a legal system that grinds its way thoroughly through to a conclusion over as long as a decade. Everything becomes 'sub judicae'. You can't talk to witnesses, release privileged information relevant to probable cause etc. into the public domain. If the system in the US was set up this way (thankfully its not) I can't imagine you would get any more information or greater transparency either. If you ask a French person why they do it like this (as I have) they say its to get at the truth without vested interests influencing the result. The judiciary, they maintain, is above this and not subject to influence.

The system ensnares anyone and everyone who could possibly have had anything to do with it, combs through the evidence piece by piece, releasing people as it becomes clear they had no role in the accident or have no case to answer, as Christiaan says. You saw this in the Spanair case: the Spanish system is similar. It applies to any transport accident in France: I had a friend who was caught up in the Erika oil spill case (the Erika was chartered by the French oil company Total and sank due to structural failure off the Galician (Spanish) coast causing massive pollution in 1999). The last "suspect under examination" was released from investigation with the publication of the report on January 16th this year.

Now you can argue the benefits or lack of, but my view is the system all about apportioning blame and secondarily about preventing a recurrance. My friend was lucky - he was 'released' by the juge d'instruction after about five years. During this time he had to go before madame juge about every six months or so and be asked questions over interrogation sessions lasting sometimes all day. It destroyed his career, threatened his family life, and came close to breaking him as a person. In fact, during the incident, as an experienced mariner and ships engineer, all he had tried to do was offer advice. Which then of course was used against him.

The joke of this all was that the finding, after the ten years: the ship sank from structural failure. Total was found not guilty but was fined and found reckless over a voluntary procedure that they had put in place some years earlier to do additional vetting of a vessel they chartered. Huh? Yes, thats right. They hadn't broken the law, just hadnt, according to the juge, followed their own voluntary procedures over and above the law. So they were guilty.

I think its that last bit that made me finally realise that the French system was probably not the best way as in that case at least, it discouraged companies taking additional responsibility.

Pinkman

"... going through protocols ..."

One might even think, that with the previous accusations of "tampering" (both Habsheim and St.-Odile, for a start), the authorities want to make darn sure, that there is an unbroken "trail of evidence" showing that the recorders that will in the end get to Honeywell are the same recorders, with the same contents, that came out of the Mediteranean originally.....

Unfortunately, a "judicial enquiry" is not done with the same urgency as a "crash investigation".

Some things never change...

CJ

Enderby-Browne said:
 

"French legal matters only proceed at the pace the current French government dictates".

How true. It's important that you common-law anglo-saxons out there understand that in France NOTHING can be independent of the government.

Well maybe the NZ and German Govts need to put some heat on the French Govt then. The sooner the information is extracted the safer.

One has to understand that the French system is different from others.
I remember a lecture by someone from the AAIB in Farnborough explaining the Concorde Case.
British investigators were forbidden access to clues during the investigation because it had to go through a criminal case or so. While the BEA (Bureau Enquête Accident/analyse) investigates on the technical (aeronautical) aspect, another investigation is carried out by the judiciary (with the possibility to use the police to keep clues under surveillance and control).
This might be what's happening right now with the Airbus Crash.

Sad but true.

If the French Government wants to withhold part of the investigation OTHER than the flight/data recorder info, fine. But the data in those boxes couldn't possible influence anyone. What's on there is one there, period. The longer the French Government withholds that info or delays its retrieval, the more they're going to be suspect.

In France there is a very strong Mafia-Type system of powerfull persons in justice, economy and goverment. Their garduates are either from :

- École Nationale d’Administration (ENA)
- École Polytechnique
- and École Normale Superieur (ENS).

Simple but true.



Graduates of course:ouch:

I cannot really let this assertion pass without reacting. I can't see the point of what is said there.
Indeed, comparatively to the rest of the population, the proportion of people in the top executives or powerfull persons that graduate from Polytechnique, ENA, Sciences Po, Normale (ENS), Ecole de la Magistrature or people that graduate from "Corps d'Etats" is higher than for people coming from university, but it has no link at all to the fact that information can be kept for a judiciary investigation.
It's not a Mafia type system at all...

OK to make it more clearly, their major goal is to protect La Grande Nation.

You'll have to admit that's it's seen by many people, and not only outside France, as something ... not quite Mafia, but let's say for the moment ... "less than desirable"?

In this case, I cannot but agree with the opinions being expressed here.

Those recorders should have been identified, "scellés" ("sealed" legally) and sent to Honeywell, the moment it became obvious the BEA could not read them, presumably because of physical damage from the impact.

The fact they are not going to Honeywell until early next year is now becoming "criminal neglect" of a totally different kind....

CJ

Well if that data is sitting there, waiting to be analysed, and the system isn't flexible enough to allow safety to be the number one priority and get it downloaded it's a crappy system in my view. Shouldn't the German and Kiwi investigators be able to stress the importance of seeing what happened via the FDR?

I admit this may be filed under "it'll never happen in my lifetime". And "don't be so naive". I also admit that I do not have full knowledge of the whole procedure, so shoot me down.

The FAA & JAA have tried to develop a system of certification that is useable outside their borders, i.e. international. A system of commonality; of common standards. A system wherebye design successes can be standardised, a system wherebye errors can be discussed and designed out; a system wherebye crew qualifications can be accepted by different states.
Why then, when there is an aircraft crash which is registered to a JAA state, or FAA state, can there not be an independant body to investigate the affair? After their deliberations and report it will become evident if there are criminal issues to consider. They woluld work with a team from the manufacturers and local authority, but have overall control. The escence of the investigation is to find out why and stop it happening again. I thought this was the crux of international cooperation. Instead we have the local investiagtion agencies and the manufacturers and uncle tom cobbly and all having their say. Surely an independant specialised agency, with no axe to grind, but that of truth and prevention, will be quicker, more thorough and more credible than the present system?
Just a thought. Why in this day and age of global operations and design commonality is investigative sovreignty so protected? Surely the absolute truth is what we need and trust. Remove commercial vested interests and perhaps there might be more complete understanding of what really happened and better prevention of a repeat. Ah, the ideal dream.

I don't want to seem naive but I don't think it's the case.
We all agree I think so say that the judiciary investigation undermines the technical one. It's not due to incompetence but to a very rigid system.
As RAT5 says, having an international specialised agency would surely be a very good answer to this kind of problem. But honestly, which aviation authority, which government would dismantle its investigation branch, its transport safety board for an international agency. I think none is really willing to.
The subject on the french investigation/judiciary system should be closed because we can't (here) really change it.
Let's focus on the evidences or lack of evidences we have and take note that as far as I know, no one here can certify where the black boxes are right now.
Let's hope, in the name of safety, that this case is solved as quickly as possible.

Well said.
That is a good point. Does anyone know? Anyone want to hazard a guess?
Who is responsible for them at the moment?

Investigative Judicary System
 

We had the same problem/question in the Spanish Madrid MD80 Crash Case on another forum, I will repost it here (as Spanish and French Investigative Judicary System are fairly similar), simply replace "Spain" by "France" in the central bits:

Thats probably because all the TV series you see picture the anglo-saxon (UK, US and acolytes) judicary system (which basically is a feudalistic one and has not changed drastically since the year 1000+), whereas in the rest of Europe there are (very) different takes on things depeding on nation (and comparatively modern), and you will have to delve into history a bit to get the picture..

While I am only fairly knowledgable in German judicary matters (the system there is a mix of Bavarian, Austrian and Prussian systems) I have a rough idea of how things work in Spain and that its legal system is based in the Napoleonic (Civil) Code of the beginning of the 19th century (which again had deliberately been partly based on the Roman Legal Code by Justinian).

It is historically quite interesting and revolutionary as it was the first written law "project" in history and as such provided some "legal security" compared to the times before where you depended on a judge arbitrarily interpreting Kings ideas... It introduced a lot of new things like differentiation of civil, penal, parental and administrative law codes, based any trial on the obligation of having a *published* law, prohibition of retroactive punsihment, fairly liberal consensual divorce, etc. (The "Code Napoleon" (1804))

Now, if you consider that this was just a 5+ years after the French revolution that overthrew the feudalistic aristocratic system (incl its idea of justice, something that never happened in England and so still also holds in the US) and had thrown the French nation into a legal vacuum with horrendously arbitrary trials based on nothing ("The Revolution Eats Its Children", see Robespierre), it of cause took over some stuff of that time (Ancien Regime):

In the pre-revolutionary times the judges factually (as it still is in the UK and the US to some extent: The famous Case Law) exceeded some *legislative* power through their decisions, i.e. actually *made* laws (the old law courts, interestingly, were called "Parliaments", rings a bell?), something that with the idea of separating the state into three powers (legislative, judicative and executive) had to go (one of the main things in the NC was that precedents didnt bind, i.e. didnt have law character).

Now, this *civil* code was written up fairly rapidly and important parts were also rapidly added over 5 years, eg. a Penal Code, and, here comes the part that is interesting for our dicussion, a Code of Criminal Instructions, all based on the original Civil Code:

The Code of Criminal Instruction emerged from a blending of the inquisitory procedure and the accusatory
procedure and it installed an "inquisitorial" system of adjudication, in which a judge (the "instructing" judge) would actively examine claims, exhibits, proofs etc and file a report.

From Wikipedia (Inquisitorial system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia An inquisitorial system is a legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in determining the facts of the case, as opposed to an adversarial system where the role of the court is solely that of an impartial referee between parties. Inquisitorial systems are used in almost all countries which were not part of the British empire (the so called *civil law" countries as opposed to the "common law" countries, R.)/End Wikipedia.

Both systems have advantages and flaws (presumably):

The adversial system has to resolve a dialogue between prosecution and defense and so becomes a rather personal matter where a conviction can depend on the quality of either prosecuter or counsel in front of a jury, thus it is claimed that generally richer defendats will be better off than a street bum in the same situation as they can buy lawyer quality.

OTOH the inquisitorial system, where the instructing judge is not impartial referee (he has to follow the executive orders) and the prosecutor has to follow his "instructions" under control and orders of the minister of justice, while treating richer and poorer people more alike, is often supposedly not totally incorporating the presumable innocence of a defendant, as the judge is part of the prosecution. This has been mitigated through different changes the system went through during the last 50 years and can fairly be ignored today.

The goal of the instructing judge in Spain is not the prosecution of a certain person, but the finding of truth, and as such his duty is to look both for incriminating and exculpating evidence.

For what its worth,

Rattler

More in depth, here (in English): Criminal court procedures in Spain | Legal guide provided by English-speaking Spanish lawyers with iAbogado, Spain

Just an observation :hmm: In the case of Spanair nobody attributed the lack of timely information as a cover up . . . it was more or less just put down to the manana attitude people expected.
Yet here, everyone smells a rat(atouille) and I include myself in that.
Is that merely because the aircraft was manufactured by what is predominantly a French company ? or do we still have some misgivings at the conclusions drawn after previous Airbus accidents (or indeed the Concorde debacle ) . . . . . . . well, had it been a 737 that speared in after maintenance by a French company in Perpignan we "might" be in the same situation. . . . . . b u u ut somehow I doubt it.
The French judiciary need to get their heads out of their asses and allow this to be investigated toute suite. They are potentially interfering with dissemination of important safety information (if they ARE indeed the hold up here)and surely that is in some way contrary to the law. Time methinks for the Germans or Kiwis to start making a bit of a fuss , never mind JAA/FAA/IATA or whoever. This is one of the most common types in service which appears to have fallen out of the sky at a non-critical phase of flight for no obvious reason and these w@nkers are doing nothing to help the progress of the investigation := WAKE UP . :ugh:

If you think that would bring even an iota of progress, two words:

Rainbow Warrior

Call me naive but I am pretty sure that when "the real experts" - not recruited on pprune" will feel they need to put pressure on anybody during what is,have no doubt, case a little bit more complicated than found on TV (where they solve mysteries in 52 minutes), they will.
Between conspiracy theories and ill informed comments (because people who actually know, are working at the AAIB, BEA, NTSB, etc... and not here), so called professionals whose speculations based on their minute knowledge on how things work only manage to show a sad image of our profession and ethics. In case you have not realised but any conclusions coming out of this enquiry could have very important consequences... Maybe it will affect badly Airbus, XL, NZ or perhaps human beings and their families.
Pathetic comments from many if most contributors on this thread and but if you feel hard done then why don't you offer your expertise to whichever investigation branch you fancy. They might have you... Oh no, I have forgotten, you are not qualified :( in any way or manner.

rattler46 offered a nice description of the judiciary system but frankly, when someone asks "Perhaps ChristiaanJ [or someone] can explain the French criminal investigation system to us.", you have to laugh.
So, here, on pprune, someone believes that somebody will have the answer in 5 perhaps, 10 lines ? With all the nuances, intricacies that exist ?

Over and out

AMEX writes in part:

"In case you have not realised but any conclusions coming out of this enquiry could have very important consequences... Maybe it will affect badly Airbus, XL, NZ or perhaps human beings and their families."

Yes, that happens in these investigations, doesn't it? Someone is going to be hurt by the findings. SO WHAT?! That's what investigations are all about: finding the cause so that perhaps a solution can be found to prevent the same thing from happening again.

And....."Over and out" is only used in the movies.:)

AMEX, had you considered that perhaps we (with some justification) don't trust the integrity of the conclusions drawn by your country in the field of accident investigation. :=
Because of that, "delays" are viewed with something of a juandiced eye. :hmm:

Well said AMEX just about the only voice of reason on this whole thread.

The French system is what it is.... like it, hate it..... It is what it is and you will have to wait.

Where are the flight recorders ? who knows ? My best guess at Honeywell already downloaded with investigators already having a good idea of what happened.

Why no information released ? Because unlike Pprune anything said has to be factually correct. Reports normally go to all interested parties for comment before release.

If there is a problem with the aircraft that is know about then it will be dealt with in the usual manner, safety alerts, AD's ETC.
Does anyone here really think safety information would be witheld?

Having to wait a long time for accident reports is nothing new, as anyone who has been in the aviation business for more than 5 mins knows.

Lets quit the paranoia and conspiracy theories and start to talk facts.