Posts by user "WillowRun 6-3" [Posts: 34 Total up-votes: 35 Page: 2 of 2]¶

No, however:

While I have not studied France's law applicable to aviation accidents generally or investigations in particular, it is my understanding that French law does allow earlier, or more direct, participation - or both - in aircraft accident investigations. Annex 13, on the other hand, does not contemplate determination of blame or liability which are substantially the same thing as sought to be determined by prosecutors (albeit in a different form of court proceeding).

Also, one of the most fundamental principles, if not the most fundamental principle, underwriting all of what ICAO does - at least within its traditional or historic remit and not drifitng off into DEI or strident environmental causes - from the Convention through the Annexes and SARPs, is standardization. Obviously criminal investigations will not be, and could not become, standardized across the States which are active in the international civil aviation sector.

At the time of the Alaska Airlines door plug incident and its aftermath, long-time aviation policy worthies decried the way in which the status of the NTSB investigation had been dragged into the criminal matter against Boeing pending in federal district court in Texas. Their reasoning was that accident investigators must have access as unfettered as possible to sources of information, and the presence of criminal processes necessarily makes people reluctant to speak or provide information otherwise. With this reasoning in mind, it could be agreed that although Annex 13 and pertinent SARPs are not the ultimate in investigatory enlightenment, criminal inquiries (and the French version of same) are not an inherently better approach.

Of course, when reasonably specific and articulable facts point to potential criminal conduct, that is a very different matter.

It's the last sentence which prompts me to comment further. First, the relevant excerpt from the Journal item:
"An NTSB spokesman said Homendy has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Air India investigation, including the cockpit voice recording and details from the flight-data recorder.

Homendy said her goal in working with Indian authorities was 'to quickly determine whether the crash presented any immediate safety concerns to the traveling public.'" (internal quotation as in original)

It's quite unlikely the NTSB spokesman would have said more than Chair Homendy had authorized. The content as to the scope of her review isn't the substantive part, but it does set the context for the quote from Ms. Homendy. Her statement refers to "quickly" making a determination about "immediate safety concerns." I read this as not referring only to the time after the Prelim Rpt was released, but all of NTSB's interactions with AAIB as of July 12.

We know no emergency (or other similar labels) ADs have been issued. Early on, when no such emergency ADs were issued, some people speculated that cover-up could be the reason why. And, recalling back to the first days as of July 12, there was wide recognition that a grounding order would have immense impact and consequences, given the widespread numbers in airline fleets.

But now, the Board Chair provides an attributable on-the-record statement about the need for immediacy, had there been an aircraft or engine problem. What I read as substantive is the confirmation from such an official source that no such problem has been shown to exist. Not a large segment of the "traveling public" let alone the public at large reads Accident Board reports, let alone preliminary editions. So in her giving an attributable statement, I read an intention to reach a wider and more general audience with the message, in effect, that the causal chain of this accident does not stem from an aircraft or engine problem implicating safety of flight.

I didn't note the time of the website article from which I took the (exact) quotes. The same website article now refers to the article published in the print edition of today's date (July 17). Why do you ask?

I'm close to being confused (but that wouldn't be even R&N).

I didn't open the link to the article archived in that post.... until just before this reply. I read the article last evening (Chicago time) and again this morning. I noted no changes.

I also noted no changes in the print edition article compared to the website.

I marked the quotations from Homendy quite clearly (I thought). I'm not clear what you're referring to. I don't think you're mistaking my comments in the post for statements attributed to Chair Homendy ...(?).

But I appreciate your evident assumption that I would want to correct any error I may have made in citation - I would, yes. It's definitely an over-the-hill lawyer thing.

An interesting, if also creative phrase. But the standards for various levels of bad intent may vary from state to state in the U.S. and even more likely between different countries. So I'm going to refrain from trying to match levels of criminal culpability to different sets of facts and unknowns in this accident. And even worse, I have not had any significant exposure to the legal process in either the U.K. or India.

Sorry that I inadvertently created a sub-(h)-wheel of sorts. My post about the WSJ reporting could have been more explicit about the inferences I believe can properly be drawn from the statement actually quoted from Chair Homendy.

The NTSB spokesman said the Chair had reviewed everything. Her statement - on the not large assumption it was made after the Prelim Rpt was released (though the reporting doesn't say when) - refers to her, in her official role, wanting to determine quickly if any safety concerns had to be addressed immediately.

When no emergency ADs or other urgent safety messages were forthcoming in the first days after June 12 (other than the Air India inspection order) there was fairly extensive debate on-thread about whether the absence of such urgent safety bulletins could be taken to mean that neither the aircraft nor engines had been implicated as having caused the accident. Several posters pointed out that if there were an aircraft or engine problem there would already have been bulletins issued. Others argued, not necessarily, maybe it was too soon to tell.

Reading the WSJ reporting, and the words quoted from the Board Chair, now after the Prelim Rpt, and after the reporting by The Air Current prior to the Prelim Rpt release was proven accurate, I'm inferring her statement to communicate that, by now , if an aircraft or engine problem was present, it would have been discovered.... and Emergency ADs flying out of FAA etc.

Of course, it can be said that it's still too soon, but that's not how I see the pieces fitting together. And I apologize for allowing my earlier post to be read as if my inferential reasoning was instead part of Ms. Homendy's statement.

[ By the way, to za9ra22, as the head of the NTSB and the U.S. as the State of manufacture, she is hardly just some random federal official, as post 1411 implies. ]

No objection . . . and I leave the attempt at humour to your reasonable inferential mind.

I suspect that, among the ranks of attorneys in India or authorized to practice law in the country who possess reasonable competence in aircraft crash litigation, there is a marked absence of such attorneys who would agree to take on such a case. And further, what attorney with even a modicum of respect for Annex 13 would take such a case to court?

Always, the deep pockets.

But those kinds of cases are claims seeking to establish liability for an accident. This case is seeking to establish non-liability and do so in advance of completion of the Annex 13 investigation.

The case appears to be a claim against the way the AAIB has fulfilled (or not fulfilled) its Annex 13 duties and responsibilities. I haven't read the filing completely yet, so perhaps there's some aspect to it which could make it seem reasonable. But as things stand, I am unaware of any precedent, in any sovereign jurisdiction (State Partys to the Chicago Convention of 1944), allowing court action against the Annex 13 authority in a given country in general, or to establish non-liability of a principal actor involved in the accident before the investigation is complete.

Sure, if the AAIB staff steal your car and kidnap your wife, and offer you the choice of which you will get back, then among other claims I guess under India's laws you could file a claim for arbitrary and capricious decision-making by the staff and that they abused their discretion. But court action seeking to modify the conduct of the investigation? Mark me down as skeptical.

"We're back to this rubbish" ..... indeed, and because many folks in all manner of occupations and professions believe that most attorneys should justify busy themselves with taking the trash out, I'm going to try.

Reference is made to the series of posts above, starting with 1524 (Nov. 7) noting then-new legal developments in India, through 1533 (Nov. 7) in which Someone Somewhere included - very helpfully! - links to a lawsuit filed in India seeking an independent investigation and a "report" (so-called by its writer) entitled, "Flight [Air India] 171: Analyzing Electrical System Anomalies"; this so-called report was written by one Capt. Amit Singh and captioned with the name "Safety Matters Foundation" - Gurukul for Safety." I'm not taking the time to look up in some translation source whether Gurukul is a form of "Guru" which would place Capt. Singh on familiar terrain for the flower children in the 1967 Summer of Love . . . but I digress.

In another post there is a link to a report by the BBC (Nov. 7, by Theo Leggett) in which it is noted that the India Supreme Court was "considering a petition" filed - in some process which I admit is entirely unclear to me - and that during some sort of preliminary process or hearing, one judge remarked, with reference to the petitioner's son, i.e., the Captain (PM), "nobody can blame him for anything."

Now, why rehearse these crosss-references here? -- because I'm trying to find out if a comment I read earlier today on the Wall Street Journal website was accurate or not. That commenter, besides assailing the leaks of information from the investigation (and impliedly, the proliferation of screwball "analyses', possibly lofted into the ethersphere by Artificial Typing Pools) asserted that there probably have not been other instances where a properly constituted and convened Annex 13 accident panel was challenged in ligitation in the investigating country. If there are one or more such cases like the one filed in India which have proceeded somewhere else, oh boy would I have a guest lecture to pitch to certain Air and Space Law faculties. And similarly, precedent for a parent or anyone related to an aviator who perished in a civil aviation accident filing a petition seeking to exonerate their family member - has this ever been litigated at all, anywhere?

And there's a second reason. I think it's no coincidence that the publishers of the Wall Street Journal decided that the time had come to go public with the reporting in the article currently on its website. I think I would get one hundred percent concurrence if I asked actual pro's on this forum whether Chairwoman Homendy proved herself to be a tough customer (sorry for the vernacular or slang but "no-nonsense" just isn't colorful, I mean lawyerly, enough) in how she conducted the DCA hearing a few months ago. In other words, it's entirely believable and reasonable to understand Chair Homendy taking pretty tight control over the activities of the U.S. parties in India as described in the article.

And with rubbish reports circulating, time to get some perspective into the public domain. In fact, maybe I've got the timing backwards. Realizing the goings-on in India with NTSB and other U.S. representatives were going to be disclosed at some not-distant time, whatever this outfit "The Federal" really is, it tried to -- rubbish up the public discussion. One thing seems certain, though. With the newly-elected Chair of the ICAO Council taking office soon, and given that diplomats of Japan (with aviation matters portfolios) probably are pretty tough customers, i.e., no-nonsense, too, the fiasco which the AAIB process has become certainly will be lurking in the corridors in Montreal.

Many thanks for noting this accident and its significance with regard for both investigations of accidents and their causes, and litigation concerning such investigations.

I didn't make it explictly clear earlier, but there is a difference between court action challenging the outcome of a completed investigation, and the situation in India in which the investigation's outcome is yet to be determined. Some might argue that most of the results of the AAIB investigation can already be accurately predicted because the material facts already are clear enough, and so it is quite similar to the NZ Mt Erebus case. But it also is a material fact that a final investigation report, and the preliminary status of the continuing Air India investigation, are different things.

Another parallel is that the Mahon inquiry sought to exonerate the pilots, much as the parent of the Air India Captain (PM) is trying to do. Again, however, in the Air India situation the final report is yet to be determined.

I was not familiar with the case NZ Mt Erebus case. I recall reading something about it at a time when I was advising a client whose parent had been a heavy transport pilot in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war and then an airline FO and Captain for a U.S. major carrier. According to my client her parent had flown to Antarctica and (she informed me) this was considered a relatively rare accomplishment. But the client had a stark and intense aversion to hearing anything about aircraft accidents and so, looking back, when I read something about the accident I just filed it away and didn't acquire any other information, and clearly not familiarity.

So the situation in India is not as unprecedented as I thought (and said). Even so, together with a segment on the NZ Mt Erebus case, it would add to public international air law curricula, someday maybe.

Leonauka
re: Louisville KY (and just briefly to avoid more thread drift here):
The federal government enjoys sovereign immunity. There are no facts of which I am aware pertaining to the airport that would make any part of the federal government liable for the accident occuring. And whether the airport is owned by the United States, or leased to or by it..... I don't know, although my understanding is that civil airports are owned by state and/or local government entities uniformly throughout the U.S.

I guess one could argue that the FAA or Department of Transportation should have had different standards for what sorts of businesses and structures surround an airport (on the premise that the casualties on the ground were worsened by the oil recycling tanks being impacted, perhaps). But even indulging that premise, and assuming such siting matters are regulated at the federal level, there is no sensible argument that such matters are of the nature that would override sovereign immunity. I'm stopping there, based on having killed numerous electronic trees on the subject of sovereign immunity about what happened in D.C. on 29 January.

Regarding this particular accident and the continuing investigation, there is a reason to keep the thread open. There are evidently two legal actions pending in India which seek to redirect the conduct of and/or authority over the AAIB process. (One action by the Captain's (PM) parent, and the second by an ostensibly safety-related group - I haven't seen anything indicating these are actually the same court action.)

One could argue that just like waiting for the final AAIB report to be released, interested observers should just wait for further developments in the court case, and there's no need for a thread to keep open. Except for one important distinction: during the continuing AAIB investigation process, the AAIB - according to best practices as I understand them to exist - is required to say nothing until it issues its complete, final report on the accident. The court actions, by contrast, have some likelihood of producing streams of activities and developments. There court actions, which again directly challenge the conduct of and/or authority over the AAIB investigation, do appear quite unusual enough (if not unprecedented actually) to justify keeping the thread open (but of course, subject to forum participants keepin' it real).

Chalk this latest article into the "gallows humor" column. Someone in the publication decided to parrot the actual reporting published by The Wall Street Journal (see above, Dec. 2) - and it's hilariously, if also darkly, obvious they did so.