AIRFIELD
First, lets look in depth at the airfeild. During any accident, photography will be your most important information to determine the cause of the accident. However when the crash occurs at an airport as opossed to elsewhere you have many other documents to help determine the cause of the crash. First you need to collect all available published information about the airfield current as of the date of the acccident (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). Airports change all the time and Investigators need to also collect a current aerial photo to use will investigating the cause. Next will break it down to look at the airfield status, post accident activity, airport standards and disaster response and rescue.
- Airfield Status: While all airports generally the same purpose, the amount of information available about an airport depends on the status (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). Most airports that operate a scheduled air carrier must follow procedures found under FAR/AIM 139. This regulation also requires that the airport be certified and have a regular inspection (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). While the airport must be inspected, it also must have and follow an prescribe operations manual as well as an emergency plan. Some examples of subjects in the operations manual are
- Operational Responsibilty
- Limitations
- Obstructions
- Markings and lighting system
- Traffic and wind direction indicators
- Aircraft omcodemts amd accidents
- Bomb accidents
- Natural Disaster
- Power Failure
- Water Rescue
2. Post Accident Activity: Following an aircraft accident. it is common for the FAA to collect all
the records on all the facilites and Navaids at the airport and recertify the Navaids in use at the
time of the accident (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). Most accidents and fatalities take place during the departure (take off / climb) and arrival (approach/ landing) stages up to 36%.
During these phase aircraft are close to the ground and in a more vulnerable configuration
then during the other phases ("1001 Crash - Airplane accidents statistics - Flight phases," n.d.).
If an aircraft is flying a VOR approach and crashes the FAA take the VOR out of service until
it is inspected and recertified.
3. Airport Standards: Since every airport is different the ICAO have agreed to adopt a standard
service manual for airports around the world. While this is not binding to any one country they
gernerally been adopted throught out the whole world (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). As
previously discussed the United States operates under Part 139 of the FAR/AIM.
4. Disaster Reposnse and Rescue: In almost every accident on or near an airport, the question of
emergency always come up (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). Some questions the might arise are
- Was the equitment, facilities and personnel adequate
- Was there an emergency or disaster plan
- Was the notification and response timely
- Were th rescue procedures at the scene adequate
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
Second, lets look at the air traffic control. finding out what was done by air traffic controllers and tower operations is not a difficult task. Much of it is recorded or logged (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006).
All of the avaliable information can be found through various site. ATC Live can give you information however it is not a credible source. For invesigators the FAA keeps record of all the recorded
- Voice transmission
- Controller statments
- Flight Plans
- ATIS information
- Position Logs
Another use for collecting the voice transmissions is the ablity to locate and talk to other pilots that were in the area at the time of the crash. Getting a different view from other pilots can help the investigator piece together the accident.
WEATHER
Last, and in my opinon the most important one is weather. When the accident happens investgators want to gather as much information the can. However weather can change in the blink of an eye and may not be able to see what the weather looked like at the time of the crash. It is possible
resurrent the data at the time of the crash and recreate the weather the existed. It takes an experienced meterologist to know where to find this information and what to do with it (Woods & Sweginnis, 2006). Some information that will be gathered to determine the crash is
SOURCE OF DATA
- NWS
- FAA
- Airline Meterological office
- TV and Radio Stations
- Weather Radar Data
- lighting Data
- Low Level Wind Shear
- Airmets
- Sigmets
- Area Forcast
- Terminal Forcast
- Pireps
In the world of aviation record keeping is ideal and required by the FAA . It is know as a Paper trail. With accurate records investigators can go back and determine possible factors of a crash by analysing information that is kept of record.
AIR DETECTIVE TIP #13
AD #13 goes over in detail what was discused in previous sections. AD #13 goes over Paper trails. All accident events can be narrowed down by just following the paper trails. Researching and reading records could determine the possible cause of many accdients and use them to help train pilots and controller to prevent a future accident of its kind.
REFERENCES
1001
Crash - Airplane accidents statistics - Flight phases. (n.d.). Retrieved
from http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-statistique-lg-2-numpage-3.html
Wood, R. H.,
& Swegonnis, R. W. (2006). 22. In Aircraft Accident Investigation
(2nd ed., pp. 171-174). Casper, WY: Endeavor Books.
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