Aerospace Operational Mishap Forensic Considerations

Excerpt

In the U.S., aviation mishaps continue to plague the military, commercial, and general aviation communities. According to the United States Air Force (USAF) Safety Center public data, there were 22 class-A mishaps involving more than 2 million dollars, loss of life, permanent disability, or loss of aircraft in 1,590,977 flight hours. In the fiscal year 2018, this accounted for 1 mishap, approximately every 72317 flight hours. In commercial and general aviation, it was reported in 2002 that up to 80% of mishaps and human factors were responsible. The USAF Safety Center and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are the U.S. agencies that have determined to reduce this rate. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld challenged the military in 2003 to reduce by 50% the number of mishaps over the next 2 years. The following year, the former Chief of Staff of the USAF stated that the Air Force’s goal was to eventually get to a zero percent mishap rate. Why do we investigate aircraft mishaps? Since the first known aircraft mishap with Orville Wright and Lt. Thomas Selfridge in 1908, our goal in investigating the circumstances of accidents has been to improve flight safety. Now, teams include a human performance specialist or medical officer to work in conjunction with a maintenance officer, an airframe pilot, a forensics expert, and a senior investigator to preserve and gather evidence, investigate injuries and fatalities, and determine why things happened the way they did to develop steps toward improving the safety of flight for the future of aviation. We must continue to look at each mishap investigation for evidence to improve survivability in the future as we strive toward the goals previously identified.