Q. What are the broad steps involved in an investigation?The ICAO had come out with ‘DOC 9756’ or the Manual of Accident Investigation.Globally, the investigators follow this manual, which outlines detailed procedures to arrive at the most probable cause of an aircraft accident.In addition, based on ‘DOC 9756’ and its own experiences, AAIB has prepared a document known as ‘Procedure Manual’ which contains the investigation process/procedures to be followed in India.Q.What are the priorities for AAIB investigators after reaching the aircraft accident site?Obviously, when any unfortunate aircraft accident happens, the immediate focus of the ‘first responders’ such as airport staff, security personnel which includes CISF, NDRF and local police is to save lives.AAIB takes charge of the activities as soon as its team arrives at the crash site and starts coordinating with the ‘first responders’ for the remaining work.After cordoning off the general area, AAIB controls and regulates any movement at the crash site in order to make sure that the evidence is not lost inadvertently or tampered with deliberately.AAIB’s priorities are to look for survivors and/or save lives at the crash site, retrieve recorders, sift through the debris for any meaningful examination at a later date, and shift these meaningful debris to a safe and secure place.AAIB investigators get divided into sub-groups and start segregating the debris into sub-groups such as flight recorders, airframe, propulsion, avionics and controls, among other elements.The first and foremost task is the retrieval of recorders i.e.Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR).Once the retrieval is affected, the next step is ‘milking of raw data’ from these recorders.The raw data is then converted into actionable and workable ‘engineering parameters’.Then, these engineering parameters are converted into graphs and charts for deriving meaningful and credible interpretations.Q. How strong are India’s capabilities in analysing the data during an aircraft accident investigation?India as a sovereign nation is quite well equipped to analyse recorders.AAIB, DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) and airlines also have their recorder labs in place.In case, there is a need, AAIB can seek help from NAL (National Aerospace Laboratories), Bengaluru, HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd), Korwa, and LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) Project as they have excellent infrastructure and enough domain experts of international repute who can be co-opted to assist the aircraft accident investigations and render advice.Also, if there is an iota of doubt that the milking of raw data from the recorders could result in erosion of data, the chief investigator under the guidance from the DG, AAIB can decide to take the recorders to their Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).Aircraft manufacturers do not manufacture recorders and these are outsourced from other companies like Honeywell.
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