10 Things You Didn't Know About the NTSB
1. The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent federal agency and not part of the Department of Transportation.
2. The NTSB investigates all civil aviation incidents and certain types of accidents that occur on other forms of transportation, including railroads and highways.
3. The board has five members, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They serve five-year terms.
4. Established in 1967 to conduct independent investigations, the NTSB issues findings that are used solely to improve transportation safety and cannot be entered as evidence in court.
5. Each year, the NTSB investigates about 2,000 aviation incidents and about 500 accidents on other modes of transportation, such as rail, highway, marine, and pipeline.
6. Each investigation is led by a "Go Team," which must travel to an accident site as quickly as possible. Members of these teams must be available 24 hours a day while on duty.
7. Aviation Go Teams respond only if an aviation accident occurs in the United States, in its territories, or in international waters. But NTSB will send a representative if a U.S.-manufactured plane or carrier is involved.
8. The NTSB does not investigate criminal activity. Other agencies take over if an incident is a crime.
9. The NTSB is currently looking into what happened on Air France Flight 447, which broke apart in flight on June 1, killing 228 people.
10. The agency is also investigating the cause of the Metrorail crash in Washington that killed nine people on June 22.
Sources:
- NTSB.gov
- Aviation International News
Reader Comments
NTSB ignores indicated design flaw for decades.
The NTSB and FAA have known for decades about a lack of positive detection of fuel contaminated with water the pilot cannot positively detect or eliminate during the pre-flight of the aircraft. See NTSB Safety Recommendation A-83-6 which the NTSB closed on January 13, 1986 as UNACCEPTABLE and walked away. Whether undetectable water in the fuel was responsible for this sputtering engine or not the indicated design flaw still exists. See FAA Safety Recommendations 99.283 and 99.284 about undetectable water in the integral fuel tanks of the high-wing Cessna. Additionally here is a link from decades ago about undetectable water and efforts of two individuals who tried in vain to get the indicated design flaw corrected:
http://www.sumpthis.com/hwdocs/documentshw.htm
Air France crash
Re item 9 of "10 things you didn't know about NTSB" - in fact Air France says flight 447 did not break apart in flight, but crashed intact and went belly first into the sea.
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